The Dream Box
by Muggle Jane
Summary: Sometimes dreams are more dangerous than nightmares. Rated for language and "adult situations."
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I don't own any of the characters or canon situations, I'm just directing them for my amusement.**

My younger sister got married before I did. I didn't even have any romantic prospects on the horizon. And, despite all of the shame my mother tried to push on me about it, I simply didn't care.

The ceremony was lavish, just ostentatious enough to remind us all which family she was marrying into. An enormous white tent had been erected in the back garden at Malfoy Manor with a covered walkway leading to the terrace and the ballroom beyond. The albino peacocks elegantly roamed the grass, and everything fairly dripped in silver.

I'd been Astoria's bridesmaid, of course, standing up beside her just opposite Theo Nott. The same Theo Nott that my mother had been pushing at me ever since my dear sister announced that she and Draco were engaged. I'd caught the unmistakable beckon of invitation in his eyes. Nothing overt, of course, he was raised better than that, but he was very solicitous and lingering whenever our paths- or even gazes- happened to cross.

I was happy for Astoria. I thought she could have done better for herself, but Draco made her happy, and apparently wasn't the same whinging child he'd been in school. The smile I'd given him was genuine as I told him he was the luckiest wizard in the world, to be marrying my sister. He hadn't missed the unspoken threat as to what would happen if he hurt her- the firm way I held his hand when we pressed our cheeks together and the pointed look I gave him after- and I'd had to hide my smile when he blanched, just a little. Apparently he hadn't completely changed.

But it was all just a bit _much_. Theo circling like a shark on the scent of blood, my mother's passive-aggressive comments about my own lack of marital bliss, the almost-overwhelming scent of gardenias from the Malfoy's glasshouse that were simply everywhere. And so I was quite relieved that one of my tasks as sister-of-the-bride was to wade through the rather large pile of gifts intended for the happy couple.

There was a separate room tucked away, a few doors down from the ballroom, to which the house-elves were tasked with delivering the gifts. I was making sure that cards were matched to the appropriate gifts, and unofficially ensuring that Ron Weasley didn't make a mess of things.

Mr Malfoy had some idea that someone who still didn't approve of his actions during the war and lack of punishment following the war would choose his son's wedding day to try and exact revenge. To that end, he'd asked the Minister of Magic to provide an Auror to look over the gifts. I wasn't certain how Weasley had ended up with the job, whether he'd asked for the assignment or had simply chanced into it. There was a rather cross look on his face, though I didn't know if that was because this wasn't his first choice of how to occupy a Sunday, or because he'd been hoping to find something and hadn't yet.

"I don't need a babysitter." He looked up at me with a scowl on his face that I might have found impressive if I hadn't been facing down my mum for as long as I could remember. He was holding a box wrapped in delicate white-and-gold paper in one freckled hand, pointing his wand at it with the other.

I quirked an eyebrow and looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. "I know. But Draco insists he doesn't trust you, and I need to do this anyway, so here I am." I waited until he held out the box to me, then took it and made sure the card was tucked firmly under the elaborately tied ribbon before adding it to the stack on the table. Draco had very nearly had a fit when he realized that Weasley had been sent over to do this, that had been entertaining.

"What are you so happy about?" he snapped, and I realized I'd been smiling a little at the memory.

"How my new brother-in-law reacted when he found out that you were the Auror assigned to this particular task was quite amusing."

His eyes narrowed in suspicion, as though he was trying to work out if I was telling the truth or not. He didn't say anything, though, and after a short time he picked up another box- this one an oblong box in rose and green- and pointed his wand at it.

We worked in silence for a time, punctuated only by occasional long-suffering sighs from the redheaded wizard in the small room with me.

"I swear we were almost through about two dozen boxes ago!" He was eying the pile of gifts still left to look through, a rather cross expression on his face.

"We were. We've completely gone through everything that was here when we started. The house-elves keep bringing more in."

He swung around to face me again, giving me the full strength of his scowl. "That's bullshit! My brother's in from Romania this weekend, and I'm stuck here with this bottomless pile of junk!" He stared at me for a moment, and then his expression grew even more fierce if that was possible. "You're enjoying this!" His accusation seemed to fill the small room.

I lifted an eyebrow at him, unbothered by his temper. "It's better than the alternative. I'm sorry you're missing your brother's visit, but I'm not to blame. Why don't we take a break? I can go and see my sister for a few minutes, and you can get back and spend at least a little bit of time with your brother?"

He stared for another moment or two. "Why are you being so..." I waited for him to elaborate, eyebrow still raised. "Nice," he finished at a slightly lower volume.

"Nice?"

I could see his ears starting to turn a vibrant shade of red. I recalled that reaction happening quite often in school. "Reasonable. Not a complete twat."

"Believe me, Weasley, I can think of several things I'd much rather be doing on a Sunday. But if it's a choice between this and my mother's snide remarks about how my younger sister is getting married first, and Theo's..." I trailed off, shaking my head. "This is better. Before you started shouting, anyway." I gave him a pointed look.

That seemed to mollify him, at least a little. "Aren't they your friends?" He gestured in the direction of the back garden, cut off from view by a thick velvet curtain.

"I don't like large groups of people. The flowers, the heat..." I shrugged. I gestured to the thick gold watch on his wrist. "Why don't we take half an hour, and come back here after? I'll meet you out at the gate so you can come back in."

"Yeah?" Any show of his temper was completely gone now, as quickly as it had risen. "Won't Malfoy have something to say about that?"

I quickly suppressed a smile at that. "More than likely. I'll remind him that it's my only sister's wedding day, and I've hardly seen her, so unless he wants you poking around in here on your own..."

A slightly incredulous grin lit up his face. "Really? You know, you're not half-bad, Greengrass."

"Such words! I'll treasure them forever." His chuckle was slightly hesitant in disbelief at my sarcasm. I got to my feet, and he quickly moved to the door and opened it, letting me out into the hallway past him. I turned to watch him exit as well, and then touched my wand to the door to lock it, keying it to myself. The house-elves would still be able to get in and out, of course, but no one else would.

"Can you find your way out from here?" I asked, turning back to face him again.

He peered down the long hall in one direction, then the other, then turned back to look down at me. "Reckon so. If I get lost, I'll just send up some fireworks."

"Oh, I'm sure that'll be appreciated. Especially inside the house."

He gave me another grin, then turned away and headed in the direction of the front entryway.

I resettled my dress robes around me, then started walking in the same direction, only I stopped and made a sharp right into the ballroom.

A quick look around showed me that Astoria wasn't present, likely she was still in the white tent with her groom and our families, drinking champagne and dancing. I'd have enough time to give her another hug and kiss, and compliment how happy she looked, and then I could escape to the long drive at the front of the house and enjoy some fresh air where it was quiet and gardenia-free.

"Finished, are we?" The elegant drawl drew my attention from my path through the ballroom to where the head of the Malfoy family was standing with two glasses of champagne. He offered me one, and I took it with a gracious smile.

"Not yet. Apparently, between our two families they're receiving gifts from every wizarding family in Europe."

"And quite a few from outside the continent, I shouldn't wonder." The look in his grey eyes was shrewd as his eyes moved over me. "I trust you didn't leave our esteemed Auror to muddle through on his own?" There was a hint of warning in his silky words, and he shifted his stance until he was broader, the movement no doubt meant to intimidate.

I raised an eyebrow at him, undisturbed by his display. He was just like one of the peacocks that roamed the back garden, putting on a grand show to prove he was in charge. "Of course not. I asked for a few moments to see my sister and have something to eat, he said he has some family visiting from out of town that he would see."

"And you saw him out?"

"No." I took a sip from my champagne glass. "I assumed that a wizard who's been trained as an Auror would be able to retrace his steps and find his own way out."

I could see the muscle twitching in his jaw, and I suppressed a smile. "Excuse me," he offered before sweeping away in a flurry of his black dress robes.

I couldn't help but smirk a little as I continued out to the tent where my sister was perched on her groom's knee, her arms looped around his neck and blushing as he was speaking directly into her ear.

When she saw me, she slid to her feet, slightly unsteady, her face flushed in the way it always did when she was drinking. She looked so radiant, beyond happiness, that I had to smile as well. "Daphy!" she exclaimed as I drew near, and threw her arms around me like she hadn't seen me in weeks instead of just an hour or two. I embraced her, and when she pulled back, her hands stayed on my shoulders as she peered critically into my face. "Are you having fun?"

"This is the best wedding I've ever been to," I vowed. "You look so happy, Tori." We'd never quite outgrown the childish nicknames we'd called each other before we learned how to speak properly, a sign of affection.

"I am!" She giggled, her jubilation mixing with the champagne that she appeared to have imbibed quite liberally. She was entitled- after all, it was her wedding. "You should dance, Tori. Where's Theo? He's been saying he wants to dance with you." She was leaning on me for balance now as she shifted to look around the room. She must have seen him somewhere off to my left, because she raised her arm and beckoned quite expressively to him. "Theo!" she yelled over the music and the noise of so many people talking at the same time. "Here she is!"

I winced, my smile tightened into something a lot more like a grimace. "Here she is," she repeated again, a lot quieter this time. "Have fun now!" She released me, plucking the champagne glass easily out of my hand, and made her way back to her still-seated, amused-looking husband, and I could see Theo out of the corner of my eye.

"May I have this dance?" he asked, one hand extending into my field of vision, palm up.

"Thank you." I took his hand and turned towards him, letting him lead me to the highly-polished wooden dance floor, a large square set off to one side of the tent. His other hand went to hold my waist, and I rested my free hand on his shoulder, and we started to dance to the music that hadn't stopped playing since the actual ceremony had finished.

We'd both learned how to dance when we were young, and it was effortless to move about the dance floor with him. I very carefully kept the impatience I was feeling off of my face as I stared hard at his shoulder to avoid looking up and seeing the invitation in his eyes. It was just one dance, and I had the perfect excuse to escape.

I hadn't entirely been lying to Mr Malfoy. I did actually want something to eat. There had really only been time for a cup of tea and a piece of toast for breakfast that morning, getting Astoria ready for her big day had taken precedence and had started early. It was now turning into late afternoon, and I hadn't had anything to eat since. Maybe I could stop by the buffet table in the ballroom on my way out to meet Weasley.

Theo was saying something. I turned my attention from wondering what selection of food would be laid out on the buffet by the time I got to it- I'd seen the menu for this, and it was impressive, to say the least- back to my dance partner. "- look very lovely today." It wasn't the first time he'd expressed a similar sentiment.

I smiled politely. "Thank you." I didn't want to encourage him, so I didn't comment on how handsome he looked in his own well-tailored dress robes. Rude perhaps, and he did look rather good, but I was counting the seconds until the end of this particular piece of music so that I could excuse myself.

Eventually the instruments died down, and I gave him another polite smile. "Excuse me, Theo, but a bridesmaid's work is never done."

I didn't miss the look of disappointment tinged with irritation. "Of course," was what came out of his mouth, just as polite as I had been. Etiquette had been drilled into both of us practically since birth. "I do hope to catch up with you again before the evening is through."

I murmured something politely non-committal, and slipped away from him, moving quickly back through the tent and along the walkway to where the house-elves had laid a very full buffet table. It wasn't quite to the desserts, yet, and I took a small plate and piled a few delicate tea sandwiches on it, using my wand to levitate an unopened bottle of champagne along in front of me as I went back out, away from the party. I drew a few odd looks, but no one questioned me. Being the sister of the bride definitely had its perks.

It was infinitely more pleasant at the front of the house, I discovered, after wrangling my wand, the plate, and the bottle of champagne around so that I could open the door. It was quieter, the cloying scent of too many flowers replaced by the fresh smell of summer grass. I moved down the long drive, my tall black heels crunching over the gravel. When I came to the ornate black gates, I conjured a blanket for myself and spread it across the ground for a bit of a picnic.

I was just discovering that I'd neglected to take a glass for the champagne and debating whether or not it was worth conjuring one, when the muffled pop of Apparation drew my attention beyond the iron scrollwork.

Weasley looked down at me, mouth slightly agape as though he hadn't expected to see me sitting on a green blanket on the gravel, a plate of sandwiches in front of me and the neck of the glass bottle in my hand.

I looked up at him for a moment. "If you help me carry this back inside, I'll share," I offered. I put the bottle down and rose to my feet, brushing my dress robes down around me. I touched my wand to the tall gates, and they swirled away into nothing, letting Weasley walk inside.

"The owls have stopped coming," I observed, glancing at the bright blue expanse of sky above us. A few white clouds floated lazily along, but the birds that had been bearing the steady stream of gifts all day were nowhere to be seen.

"Maybe we'll get out of here before dinner, then," he replied lightly, stooping down to pick up the plate. He seemed to be in a better mood now, his face didn't look so apt to drop down into one of his scowls. "I mean, I will. You have a party to get back to."

"I do, don't I." It wasn't a question, and I wasn't exactly excited about it. I banished the blanket and took a drink from the open mouth of the green bottle before turning around and walking back up the drive to the house. He fell in step easily beside me, longer legs and lack of heels making him have to shorten his stride to keep from overtaking me.

"If your brother wasn't visiting, I'd invite you to come in with me, to see how the other half cut loose when they're pissed."

He was silent, and I could feel his eyes on me, like he was trying to figure out whether or not I was joking again. "Really?"

"Sure. Shake things up a bit. After a while, it'll just be all of the younger set outside in the tent, everyone else goes inside. Although, I honestly can't tell you which group gets up to more trouble."

More silence, and I smirked a little.

We made it back into the large house, and to the little room where our mountainous task was awaiting us. I closed the door firmly behind me and gestured to the middle of the room. "Just put the plate on the floor." I offered Weasley the bottle of champagne as I moved past him to regain my seat in the siver-striped, satin-covered chair I'd been in before.

I looked up to see him staring at the bottle, wand out like he was thinking about losing it. "You could conjure a glass, but it's more likely to just go missing than that you actually get to drink out of it." He looked up and met my gaze, I'd never noticed that his eyes were blue before. "I promise I don't have anything contagious."

He took a drink before setting the bottle down beside the plate.

We went back to work. It was more pleasant this time, with him being more at ease. And the pile he was picking gifts up from was shrinking at an appreciable rate. We shared the sandwiches, and were just about halfway through the champagne when he picked up a small wooden box, the last thing we'd yet to look at. I caught him frowning at it. "It's not wrapped," he said when he noticed me watching him.

I stood up and moved over to him for a closer look. "No card, either." I looked over to where the unsorted gifts had been, but it was fairly quickly obvious that it hadn't fallen out of anything, and there was nothing that had fallen off of it.

"Stand back," he said suddenly, authority I'd never heard before directing his voice. He pointed his wand at the box, and the tip of his wand glowed, and I was shaken by a severe jolt that somehow seemed to happen mostly in my head, strong enough to knock me from my feet.

I grazed the bottle with my hand as I went down, and it tipped over and landed with a glass thud on the hard wooden floor, the remainder of the contents foaming as they spilled out of the open container.

He looked unsettled, and I stayed where I was as he pointed his wand at the box again. His wand didn't glow this time, there wasn't another jolt.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. I'll take this back to the Ministry for further testing." He looked down at me then, and tucked his wand into the crook of his elbow, extending his hand down to me to help me up. "You all right?"

I looked at his freckled extremity for a moment before taking his hand, letting him easily pull me to my feet. "Fine. Just a bit damp. Nothing a witch can't sort out." I pointed my wand at myself and in just a second, my robes were completely dry again. I felt sticky, though, I wanted to wash my hands at the very least. "You staying or going?"

He stared down at me for a moment. "You were serious before?"

"I don't see why not."

"Your friends don't exactly think highly of me."

I had to smile at that. "It's true. I'm the bride's sister, though, I can get away with almost anything today."

His eyebrows raised up in surprise. "I couldn't when my brothers got married."

"Ah, but you're a brother, and you're younger, correct?" At his nod, I nodded as well. "That has a lot to do with it. Staying or leaving, Weasley?"

He appeared to be thinking it over for a moment, his eyes far away as though he was internally debating the merits of both options. "Leaving, I guess, because Charlie's here. Thanks for the offer, though." Was that a little reluctance I heard in his voice?

"Charlie, the brother from Romania?" He nodded. "Very well. I hope you have a good visit with your brother, then." I gestured to the closed door. "Shall we?"


	2. Chapter 2

Weasley held the wooden box in one hand, tucked against his stomach for safe-keeping, and opened the door to usher me out into the thickly carpeted hall with the other. I preceded him into the hall and waited for him to step out behind me, and then closed the door and again touched my wand to it, locking the gifts away where they'd remain until the morning. Afternoon, more likely, as soon asit was likely to be when Draco and Astoria woke up after their night of reveling.

Almost immediately, Weasley's eyebrows drew down as though he was trying to concentrate on something.

"What-"

"Sh." He shushed me. He actually shushed me. I opened my mouth to dress him down for his impertinence, but he held his free hand up, index finger pointed towards the ceiling, but the serious look on his face made me obligingly shut my mouth and listen. Apparently Auror training hadn't been just about waving his wand around.

I rested my hands on my hips. "I don't hear anything." I wasn't drunk, certainly, but the two-thirds-of-a-bottle of champagne we'd shared had slowed down my thought process. It took a moment before I realized that the complete silence from the rest of the house was very, very wrong. It was still, eery, completely unsettling.

It was dark now, the light had completely faded beyond the curtained window when we'd left the room, which meant it was late enough that the older generation of revelers would be in the ballroom to finish their evening, and there was absolutely no noise coming from anywhere in the house.

How was it that late? The sun didn't set in Wiltshire in June until quite late in the evening, and my sister would have been beside herself if I'd missed that much of the day. There were too many things that just weren't adding up.

We both started moving towards the ballroom. He pulled ahead of me quite easily, and I took a moment to step out of the tall black heels that lifted me up about 10 centimetres, abandoning them on the thick gray carpet as I followed him to the open double-doors that led into the ballroom.

He'd stopped in the doorway, wand held before him, and I put my hand on his upper arm for balance as I leaned forward to peer in as well.

The food was all still there, the long buffet table covered in dessert now as well as sturdier drinks for the evening. There were still white-covered tables with their bowls of candles and flowers, and chairs clustered about them like a cat with her kittens, but the chairs were completely empty. The doors out onto the terrace had been closed, but I could hear the faint strain of music, slightly higher tempo and with lyrics now, coming from beyond.

I pulled my wand out of my dress robes as well, holding it in front of me. Weasley started moving, and I let him go ahead of me, content to let him walk first into whatever might be waiting for us. The floor was cold under my stockinged feet as I crossed the polished ballroom floor after him.

He moved silently, pulling up to where the thick, floor-length curtains had been pulled closed over the glass doors that led out to the terrace. He paused, glancing at me with his finger to his lips in a bid for me to keep silent. One hand moved out and under the inner edge of the deep blue curtain, and after a furtive movement under the heavy fabric, he was easing the door open, standing well away from the slowly-widening crack between the doors.

The music was louder now, carrying easily on the still night air. I could see the covered path that led to the large, white tent, an eery ghost in the darkness lit up from within. There was no sign of movement from within, none of the usual noise that normally accompanied celebratory get-togethers with my friends.

When Weasley slipped silently through the space he'd opened, I did the same, keeping closer to him than I had before. The floating lights leading the way to the tent formed a long pool of light, but most of the immense back garden was swallowed the darkness beyond, and I wanted to be near him just in case whatever had made all of the witches and wizards vanish from the ballroom was outside somewhere.

The entrance to the tent loomed before us like a yawning mouth, and there was quite obviously no one inside, either. My sister was gone, Draco was gone, Theo... Everyone had vanished as though they'd all Apparated somewhere else at the same time, leaving us alone in the house.

Weasley stepped into the tent and looked around, wand still raised before him. "This isn't part of the reception that you forgot about, is it? Pictures somewhere else or something?" He wasn't looking at me as he spoke, his blue eyes quickly moving over everything, searching and assessing.

I shook my head. "No. Pictures were this morning, just before the ceremony." I moved over to one of the multitude of abandoned chairs and lowered myself into it, crossing one leg over the other. I kept my face carefully neutral, but my mind was whirling. Where had Tori gone? My sister, my little sister, had just vanished without a trace.

His survey of the tent brought his gaze to me, the hesitation of his eyes on my dangling foot making me realise that I was bouncing it in my anxiety. Much to the devilment of my mother, I fidget when I'm anxious. He didn't say anything, though, and his eyes moved on. "I reckon you know your way through the house?" At my nod, he nodded as well, the expression on his freckled face one of grim determination. "We should search the house."

"I am _not_ walking through that house by myself." I was sufficiently unsettled that I had absolutely no desire to be alone. The house was a sprawling construction of corridors and rooms, with any number of unpleasant artefacts and shadowed nooks that I wanted no part of just at the moment.

A thoughtful frown crossed his face. "No, we should stay together. In arms' reach, I reckon." His eyes came back to me as though he was just suddenly realising that it was still me he was talking to, and not someone he was more familiar with.

That suited me just fine. I got to my feet, letting him pass by me again on his way out of the tent before moving along behind him, close enough that I'd be able to reach out and grab his arm if I wanted.

The darkness seemed to press in on us from all sides, more tangible without the noise of other people moving around us. A shiver moved up from the base of my spine, and I was glad Weasley was in front of me so he wouldn't see it. I was glad he was there at all, to be honest. He may not have been my first choice of companion in the past, but right now I didn't want to be alone at all, and he seemed to be able to keep a level head on his shoulders.

This lasted only until we moved back into the hallway on the other side of the ballroom, and there he stopped, turning to look at me. "Where to now?" he asked, his voice as carefully neutral as I'd been taught to speak.

I took a quick look around before turning left and setting off down the hall towards the kitchen. It was past the room we'd been ensconced in for much of the day. The house-elves would be down that way, and house-elves always knew everything that went on in their house. Weasley stayed just beside me, eyes darting around as though he was constantly searching for something. His posture was loose, ready, suddenly reminding me of when he'd been the Keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

There were two kitchens. There was a small kitchen, all gleaming chrome and dark wood, fitted with a coffee press and a kettle and tea pot and stocked with the favored snacks of the household, specifically so no one would get in the way of the actual cooking that went on in the main kitchen. The main kitchen was immense, as befitted a house of this size. It was large enough for all of the house-elves required to feed the large contingent of people that were currently missing, and with a party of this scale, it would be bustling with activity until the early hours of the morning.

It was to that kitchen that I headed, moving past the inviting archway that led into the smaller kitchen, and pushing open the stout wooden door that kept the main kitchen tucked away from the casual eye.

No one was there. Food was laid out as though it was in the middle of being prepared. The washing up had been set to motion in the deep sinks that graced the wall just under the window. There were full platters of food waiting to replace the ones on the buffet table when they ran empty, and yet, there were no small creatures with large green eyes casting disapproving looks in the direction of the doorway for daring to intrude on their domain.

I turned to Weasley and looked up at him. "They're gone," I told him, careful to keep my voice pleasant. "There should be a small army of house-elves in here, and they're just gone."

As far as I knew, the Weasleys had never had house-elves, but he seemed to know right away that a house-elf would rather slam their fingers in the oven door than abandon their post, especially on a night that was so important to the family. This was even more worrying than the absence of the other witches and wizards. "Right." He looked around the kitchen, as though careful scrutiny might procure a house-elf from somewhere. "We should get to the Ministry." There was an edge to his voice, a hard urgency that let me know exactly how bothered he was by all of this, despite whatever training he'd had as an Auror.

I considered the sticky-feeling left side of my body, but just for the most fleeting of moments. I was, truth be told, starting to get rather worried about my sister and where she might have disappeared to. "All right. Let me get my shoes back on."

He looked down at where my stockinged feet were peeping out from under my robes, frowning. "Why-"

"The heels looked fantastic, but you seemed to be moving about the house like you were in a foot-race." For some reason, my words- lightly touched with sarcasm- made his ears light up like one of the fireworks he'd joked about setting off earlier. "They're on the way out to the front door, it's not like we can Apparate from in here anyway."

"Right."

We retraced our steps from the kitchen and down the hall. I stopped briefly to slide my shoes back on, hand braced against the smoothly-textured wallpaper, cream with swirls of silver. I was moving a little slower again, but Weasley matched his pace to mine as we continued on to the front door and admitted ourselves out into the darkness. He looked down at me, slightly surprised, when I took his arm, but he didn't question me about it.

It was even more foreboding at the front of the house. There were no lights leading down the drive towards the gates, just heavy darkness pushing in at the house. I gripped my wand in front of me, activating the light charm, and we walked together down the hard-packed gravel. Neither one of us spoke, the immediacy of the situation and the intimidating darkness made me lose any desire for casual chatter that I might have had, and seemed to do the same to him.

I touched my wand to the ornate black gate and it swirled away into nothing. Just beyond the gate was almost a solid wall of black, somehow even thicker than the darkness that swallowed the large stretches of green lawn. I shuddered again, and this time Weasley caught the tail end as he turned towards me.

"Are you ready?" he asked, seeming almost impatient. I nodded. I don't like Side-Along, but it was either that or risk being separated from the only other person who seemed to exist.

I caught a glimpse of the face of his slightly battered gold watch. "It's only half-seven." I was right, it wasn't anywhere near late enough to be this envelopingly dark.

I looked up to see the deep scowl on his face. His complete lack of surprise told me that he'd already noticed this. "Hang on," he told me, and I braced myself as the world shifted.

My head was spinning as I stepped away from him and looked around. We seemed to be standing in a sea of cubicles, at least it wasn't pitch dark here. I surveyed the short walls enclosing each individual workspace, the empty fabric-covered seats before turning back to Weasley and raising my eyebrows.

"Auror department," he told me, but he still didn't look very happy, his blue eyes taking in our new location in the same searching fashion. He gently slipped away from the grasp I still had on his arm, and moved to what I assumed was his cubicle, stopping and placing the wooden box down before resting his knuckles on the desktop as he continued to look around. "We shouldn't be alone here, we have Aurors working every hour of the day."

At least the lights were on. I took a step away from him, looking to where the room seemed to open up into a wide hallway. It was quiet here as well, our voices seemed to be swallowed by the vast, empty space.

Something lightly brushed against my hand and I flicked it away, raising my hand to peer at my skin. There was nothing there. A loose hair, perhaps, my robes were too well-made and too new to have a loose thread. It made my skin crawl a little, though. I couldn't wait to get back to Malfoy Manor and have a shower.

I perched on the nearest desk, one leg automatically crossing over the other. This was his department, and I was content to sit back and let him take the lead here. He looked unsettled, though, and very much like he had no idea what to do. "We could go back," I suggested after a while. "Have something to eat, get some sleep. Maybe this will all be sorted out in the morning." I didn't really believe it, though, and neither did he by the look on his face when he turned to where I was.

His eyes moved down to my hand, and I realized that I was tapping one manicured fingernail against the side of my leg. It was silent, or nearly, but the movement seemed to draw his attention. His eyes didn't move, though. "There's something on your hand."

I looked down and shrieked, shaking my hand and jumping off the table. There was a small spider there, no bigger than the nib of a quill, crawling over my hand. I looked at my hand to make sure it was gone, and then rushed over to put Weasley between me and the desk I'd been sitting on. That must have been what I felt earlier. I have a bit of a problem with spiders

And now, of course, my skin was crawling, I was sure that I was covered in them.

Weasley was looking down at me, eyebrows raised in question. "There was a spider on me," I told him, and he shuddered. Apparently he wasn't fond of the eight-legged arachnids, either.

His eyes narrowed, and then for the first time, a look of actual anxiety came over his face. "There's one on your hair."

I shrieked, I couldn't help it, my hands flying to my head. I smoothed them over my hair, and I could feel it moved under my hand before I squished it against my head. "I need to get back and have a shower. Now." My own voice was high and shaking, and I moved to clutch Weasley's arm again when another small black arachnid started crawling across the desk I'd vacated, this one about the size of a galleon.

"Yeah." He swept up the box, and in just another moment, we were back outside the gates of Malfoy Manor, and I quickly touched my wand to it, more than eager to be inside. I was almost running in my haste, Weasley easily keeping up with his long strides, and it wasn't long before we were back in the gleaming house, door shut firmly behind us.

I kept ahold of his arm, and he let me lead him up to the room I'd spent the previous night in with Astoria. There was an adjoining lavatory, I'd had a shower there what felt like days ago.

The room was large, spacious, papered with peach and cream wallpaper, with a thick cream carpet on the floor. I hurriedly stepped out of my shoes and started pulling my stockings off. When Weasley realised what I was doing, his eyes widened a little, and then he turned away and walked over to the window, his hands resting on the windowsill as he stared out over the blackness that took the place of the garden. It had showed a beautiful sunrise just that morning, but now there was absolutely nothing to see out there.

"I'll..." I heard him swallow. "I'll stay here."

I pulled my last stocking off and stood on the carpet in my bare feet, looking up at him. I didn't want him that far away. It was only a few metres from where he was at the window to where I would be in the large shower, but that seemed too far away. "Sure, I guess if you think I won't vanish if I'm in a separate room."

He turned to look at me, and I could see the genuine worry coupled with irritation in his eyes. "I'm not bloody getting in the shower with you, Greengrass."

I moved to the door to the loo and pushed it open, displaying the room beyond that was almost as large as the bedroom. In addition to the large, walk-in shower and the deep bath over by the window, there was a delicately-covered arm chair to one side of the room. It was meant to hold clothes more than a person, but I'd sat there just that morning talking to Astoria to help calm her nerves as she washed. "As tempting as _that_ is, there's actually an entire room in here, not just a shower."

He looked somewhat cross as he moved away from the window and came over to look through the open doorway, a look that was replaced by a begrudging sort of wonder as he took in the room beyond. "This is bigger than my room at home."

I raised an eyebrow but neglected to comment. I knew that the Weasleys lived fairly sparely, but I wasn't aware it was as extensive as all of that. "There's even a privacy screen, since the sight of my stockings sent you near to fainting."

He was looking cross again, which was an easier emotion for me to see. His temper was less complicated to handle than my sympathy for him. He went and settled himself in the chair, and I pulled the privacy screen over to the glass-fronted shower so that he wouldn't have a direct line of sight into the shower. I wanted to be able to see him, but neither one of us were really prepared for all of that. I'd be able to hear him, at least.

I slipped out of my dress robes, flinging them over the top of the screen, and directed my wand at the shower faucets, getting them to the temperature I liked. I stepped inside and let the water stream over my head, washing away the crawling feeling leftover from finding the spiders on me.

"Are there usually an abundance of spiders in the Auror Department?" I asked him, raising my voice to be heard over the steady stream of water from the silver showerhead.

"No. I've never seen one in there before." He paused. "I'm... Sorry. I'm not good with spiders."

"I'm not going to hold that against you, Weasley, or did you miss me shrieking like a banshee?"

I thought I heard him chuckling, but I wasn't entirely certain. "I'm concerned that no one else was there."

I was too, now that I was rinsing the suds from my assuredly spider-free hair. I stayed silent for a moment, thinking. I got some of my best thinking done in the shower. "Is there no one anywhere, then?" I asked after a time. "Because if that's the case, it's more likely that we're somewhere we shouldn't be than that everyone else in Wizarding Britain has simply disappeared." Which meant that Tori wasn't missing, I was. That thought eased a band of constriction across my heart. There was no answer from the other side of the shower, and I turned off the water, frowning. "You still there, Weasley?" Panic gripped me, and I was moments away from flying out of the shower and tearing down the screen.

"Just thinking."

I breathed a sigh of relief, sliding the glass door open and stepping through. I siphoned all the water from my body with my wand, but I realised that I hadn't brought anything clean into the bathroom to put on. "Can you grab me a dressing gown?"

There was a moment of silence. "Are you serious?"

"Quite. Unless you want me to come and get one on my own, I didn't bring one in here with me."

I heard the seat shift as he got up, and then his feet moving across the tile before they scuffed across the carpet to the bedroom. "What... What am I looking for here?"

I thought for a moment. I'd worn a dressing gown that morning while Astoria and I had gotten ready. Where had I put it? "There should be a purple dressing gown across the foot of the chaise."

I could hear him muttering, and in just a minute or two, a freckled hand swung my dressing gown over the screen to me.

I took it and slipped into it, belting it tightly about my waist. "Thank you." I came out from behind the screen to see him standing, staring thoughtfully at the bath. "Did you want to shower?"

He looked up at me, frowning, then shook his head. "Nothing clean to change into. I'm fine."

"I'm hungry. I think better on a full stomach." I moved past him into the bedroom again, eschewing the heels I'd spent most of the day in, in favor of a soft pair of slippers that matched my dressing gown. I moved to the door out to the hall and opened it, then looked back at him. "Coming?"

**A/N: Thank you for all of the lovely reviews! The story continues...**


	3. Chapter 3

I was seated on one of the white-covered tables with my legs crossed in front of me, the bowl of floating candles and flowers moved somewhere else. Mr Malfoy would have a fit if he saw me, which made my choice of seat all the more tempting. The plate balanced on my knee had a few of the different desserts on it, and I was holding a tumbler of Firewhisky in one hand while I jotted notes on the pad of paper balanced on the other knee with the pen in my other hand. Weasley had suggested the more Muggle version of stationary, he said it was what the Aurors used because it was more portable and practical than a quill and parchment. It was his pen and paper, in fact, but I'd insisted that my writing was neater than his, so I was the one actually writing things down.

There wasn't much on the piece of paper. A general timeline of the day for both of us, and the word, 'Curse,' with a question mark after it.

Weasley was seated at the next table, his own plate and tumbler in front of him. He was frowning into his trifle, apparently deep in thought. Neither one of us had said anything for the past several minutes, both thinking about what could have happened. At least, that's what I was thinking about.

"The Malfoys have quite an extensive library, many of the volumes deal with curses and cursed items." I cast a look over to the wooden box that was sitting innocuously on its own table, the polished wood gleaming in the light of the ballroom. Both of us had settled on that as the cause of our disappearance. It was the thing that most made sense, considering the jolt we'd each felt, and the reaction it had when he'd cast a simple spell at it.

"Of course they do." There was a note of derision in his tone, and I simply shrugged, staring down at the blue-lined, white paper. It's not like their involvement in the war was any great secret. My family had preferred to stay out of it, at least publicly, something my mother would bring up given the slightest excuse to do so.

"Whatever their reasons for the collection, it might be the best help we have."

"Bill's a curse-breaker," Weasley muttered, and I looked over at him, one eyebrow arched up my forehead. I assumed Bill was another member of his rather extensive family. "Well, if you see him, ask if he'll figure this out for us, all right?"

His ears turned that vibrant shade of red that seemed to accompany every strong emotion he had. "Libraries aren't really my thing," he snapped.

"I seem to recall that." We'd shared several classes over the years, certainly enough for me to learn something about his study habits. Or lack thereof. "Don't worry, I did all of my own homework."

He looked up at me, a temper-filled scowl on his face. "I take back what I said about you being nice."

"Sarcasm, Weasley. It's my armor. Yours is your temper, mine is sarcasm." He didn't appear to know what to say to that, somewhat mollified by my words. I gestured down to his plate. "You finished?"

He'd been holding an empty fork for a little while now, and he put it down on the plate with a soft _clink_ before pushing the plate away from him. "Reckon so. Although if this is all there's going to be, I may get a little tired of just eating sweets." A hesitant grin broke out over his face. "Never thought I'd say that."

"There are two kitchens full of food, I'm sure we'll manage." I unfolded my legs and arranged my dressing gown carefully before sliding off the table, so Weasley didn't see more of me than he really should. "Though I never quite got the hang of the domestic household charms." He looked a little puzzled. "House-elves. It's hard to learn how to cook or clean when someone is going to start punishing themselves if they catch you at it."

He unfolded himself and stood. I'm not short, but he was still considerably taller than me, and he had to bend his neck to look down at me as I went over to him. "What about now?"

I took his arm, which still seemed to surprise him a little. I didn't know why, it was the easiest way to walk with him and keep him in arms' reach. Not to mention that it was the proper way for a witch and a wizard to move about together, as had been drilled into me from a young age. "Much to my mother's chagrin, I still live in the family home. It's assumed that any match I make will be with a proper wizard, with his own cadre of house-elves." I couldn't keep the disdain from my voice when I said that. I was relaxed around him, I realised, enough that I'd started to let my guard down.

"Lucky for you, I'm not a proper wizard. Mum made sure we all knew how to cook and clean. Especially the cleaning." I could hear the wryness in his voice, and I looked up to see a smile on his face. I felt a pinch in my heart at the affection in his voice. No one in my personal social circle was that close with their parents, except maybe Draco with his mother. "Where are we headed, Greengrass?"

I led him from the ballroom to the library, which was the opposite direction of the kitchens, though still on the ground floor. He walked easily beside me, his eyes steadily in front of us instead of flickering around like he was searching for something. If we were truly alone here, then there was no need to worry about finding anyone else.

"I'll tell you what, Weasley. You make sure we don't starve, and I'll do all of the book-oriented tasks." I hoped we wouldn't be here for long enough to starve, even without needing to make our own food, but it was already passing on into night time, which more-than-likely meant sleep at some point, and then at least breakfast in the morning. It would be nice to just walk into the library, happen on the correct book, and be home in half an hour. Somehow, though, I doubted it.

"Just as long as I don't have to clean this place. Harry's place in London was bad enough."

I arched an eyebrow. Harry Potter had property in London? Aside from the Ministry of Magic and the Blacks, there wasn't really that much of wizarding Britain in London itself. I discarded the question before asking it, I didn't know Weasley well enough for gossip, especially about his best friend.

My mind went back to my previous thought. Sleep. I glanced over at him. That was something that would need to be discussed at some point. It was a discussion that could wait, though; I suspected he would very much dislike what I was going to propose, given his reaction to sharing a bottle of champagne with me and being in the same room while I showered.

I stopped in front of the dark wooden door that led into the library. "This is it," I informed him needlessly. "Mind yourself in here, there are volumes more dangerous than anything you could find in the Restricted Section in Hogwarts."

I could feel him looking at me, but he didn't say anything, and I reached out and turned the polished silver doorknob.

The door opened noiselessly, admitting us into the library. The walls were lined with dark wooden bookcases full of books of all sizes and colours. There were several wing chairs scattered about, with a pair facing the large fireplace, a table between them. I'd been in here before, several times in fact, since Astoria had started dating Draco. It was a beautiful room, perhaps the most welcoming in the house, despite the danger that lurked within.

"You're a pure-blood, aren't you?"

He shook my hands off his arm and stepped away from me, turning to face me with a rather cross look on his face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I turned to face him, one eyebrow raised. I was fairly certain I knew the answer to that question, learning the lineage of the remaining pure-blood families had been a part of my childhood lessons, but I wanted to be absolutely certain. "There are books in here that are cursed against being opened by anyone except pure-bloods. I very much do _not_ want you being cursed like that."

His eyes widened. "That's disgusting."

"Be that as it may, it's a fact. Prewetts and Weasleys, right? And Blacks, if I remember correctly?"

The look in his eyes changed from horror to one of begrudging admiration. "How'd you know all that?"

I shrugged. "We're taught the pure-blood lineages at a young age, so we know who is acceptable to marry."

The look in his eyes was going back to being horrified, though for a completely different reason this time, and I had to look away from the sympathy I could see in the blue depths. "This would certainly be easier if there were still house-elves," I mused, resting my hands on my hips and I surveyed the volumes.

"House-elves?" he asked, a sharp edge to his voice.

"If you ever want to know all the secrets of a house, you ask the house-elves. They know absolutely everything." I glanced over at Weasley. "They may even tell you, provided you're part of the family." Technically, I was a part of the Malfoy family now. I turned my attention back to the shelves and went over to a likely section.

"What time is it?" I asked him what felt like hours later. I let the book I was staring at fall to my lap, still open, pages flipping themselves over completely disregarded. Despite what I'd said, Weasley had joined me in my search, diving eagerly- if gingerly- into books that may give a clue as to the nature of the box, and how to get us back.

He looked up from his own book, a line of concentration between his eyes. He seemed to take a moment to register my question, then glanced at the heavy gold watch around his wrist. "Going on midnight."

"No wonder I'm so tired." I covered a yawn behind my hands. I'd been up for entirely too long. "I need sleep, Weasley."

"Yeah." The skin under his eyes was starting to sag a little, and he was blinking more frequently than he had been earlier in the night. "That's not a bad idea. I don't want to stop, but... I'd rather not fall asleep in here." He glanced around the room as though he expected one of the books to jump off the shelves and attack him.

I untucked my foot from where I'd sat with it curled under my other leg, placing it firmly on the floor. Bracing my hands against the armrest, I looked across at Weasley. "I sleep on the left."

"Right." He didn't seem to get what I was saying, he looked down at the book as he closed it and gingerly set it on the table between us. We were sitting in the chairs in front of the fire, though the fireplace was dark and cold. He would, though, soon enough.

He rose, stretching, then moved the step closer that was necessary to offer me his hand. I took it and let him help me up, shifting my grip immediately to the crook of his elbow. "Look. I desperately need the loo."

I had for a while now, too, but I'd been unwilling to bring it up, probably for the same reason he had. "I'm sure that a minute or two with a door closed between us won't hurt."

There was a large guest bath on the way up to the room I'd shared with my sister. We took turns inside, and while he was in, I spent the time unsuccessfully pushing down my anxiety and tapping my fingernails against my leg. Neither one of us vanished, though, and I was so relieved that I almost hugged him. Being taught to show restraint actually did come in handy.

When we got up to the bedroom, I asked him to turn around, and when he complied, quickly changed into the silky nightgown I'd worn to share the bed with Astoria. Normally I sleep completely undressed, but you have to make allowances when you sleep with other people.

"I'm clothed," I told him, slipping into the left side of the high bed.

He looked to where I'd been standing, and not seeing me there, his eyes began to search. They widened when he caught sight of me with the cream and gold duvet cover pulled up to my chin.

"I told you, I sleep on the left."

"You mean..." He glanced around the room, his ears beginning to glow once again. "You mean we're supposed to sleep..." He paused as though he was looking for the proper word. "...in the same bed?"

"You stay on your side, I'll stay on my side, and we'll be further away from each other than we were in the library." This wasn't exactly at the top of things I wanted to be doing, either. But I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't know that I'd be able to reach over and touch him. I like quiet, but the idea of being here completely by myself was very, very unpleasant for me, especially with the darkness outside that looked so thick that I could reach out and touch it.

"I sleep..." The way the vibrant shade of his ears spread down his neck gave me a pretty good indication of what he was going to say.

"I do too, Weasley, at least most of the time. I didn't think that was such a good idea for tonight, though." I considered him for a moment, my mind moving. "It's too bad you're just so tall." Draco was tall, as was his father, but Weasley was still taller than both of them. Then again, I was a fairly capable witch who'd been trading clothes back and forth with my younger sister for years.

I slipped out of bed and drew the dressing gown back on, sliding the slippers back onto my feet. I considered him for a moment. Draco was leaner than Mr Malfoy, and adding a few centimetres to a pair of pyjama trousers would be easier than making an adjustment at the waist, too. "Come with me."

He followed me out of the room, and I went down the hall and up another flight of stairs, and down another hall until I came to yet another door. There was nothing to set this door apart from the others, but I'd spent quite a bit of time in this house recently, and I knew exactly where I was. I pushed the door open.

"I don't know where Draco keeps his pyjamas, so we're in for a bit of a search." My eyes were starting to sting in their desire to be closed and left that way for quite some time, but finding Weasley something to wear to sleep in would hasten that, I was certain.

"Draco?" Weasley was scowling in the way he seemed to whenever he thought of the family that owned this house.

"Unless you'd like to sleep in your clothes, or share a bed with a witch you hardly know in nothing." I moved over to the large, carved wardrobe on one side of the room and opened the wide doors. I was faced with an assortment of robes, nothing suitable for sleep.

I knew that Draco also slept without a stitch on as a habit, but I also knew that he at least owned pyjamas. "Whatever we find will be well-laundered. Possibly not even used."

I heard him moving about behind me, going to the chest-of-drawers and starting to open and shut drawers. That seemed more likely than the wardrobe, but then Weasley would be able to pick out what he wanted to wear for himself.

"Found them, I think."

I turned away from the rack of robes to see Weasley standing with a black pair of pyjama trousers, staring at them with a rather dubious look on his face. "Put them on, I'll adjust the fit." I turned my back again, giving him the same privacy to change as he'd given me.

"Fucking hell, these are slippery." I heard the distinctive movement of silk sliding against itself. "I'm likely to just slide right out of bed."

I didn't bother to suppress my smirk as I turned back around. I'd experienced that very fate when I'd had a little too much to drink. "You get used to it. They look good on you." They were about seven or eight centimetres too short, displaying pale, freckled ankles, but they fit fine at the waist and through the hips. "Hold still."

I lifted my wand and directed it at the cuffs of the trouser legs, and they lengthened to an appropriate length. "There."

He looked down. "Thanks." He sounded a bit surprised. "You don't know how to cook and clean, but you can alter clothes?"

"Astoria is a little bit taller than me, and we swap clothes." I looked him over and nodded. "Gather your things, I'm about ready to fall asleep on my feet."

He picked up the scattered clothing he'd changed out of, holding it in a bundle in front of him, and together we went back down to the room we were to share.

Once again, I took off my robe and slippers and slid into bed. "Do you snore, Weasley?"

"Not too bad. I talk in my sleep sometimes, though." I looked over to see him standing beside the bed and frowning at it, hesitating. After a moment, though, he lifted up the other side of the duvet and slid in next to me.

I rolled away from him, turning onto my side and closing my eyes. Despite how tired I was, though, sleep didn't come immediately. I was sharing a bed with a strange wizard, and it was just slightly uncomfortable.

He was shifting around behind me like he was trying to get comfortable, he was apparently having the same difficulty I was.

"How was your brother?" I asked him at last, keeping my voice down even though there was no possible danger of waking anyone else up. I opened my eyes, looking into the darkness that had taken over the room when we'd settled down to sleep.

I heard him shift around one more time, and then settle back with a sigh. "Good. He was good. He's not able to come out here too often, so it's always good to see him."

"What does he do in Romania?"

"Works with dragons." There was a note of pride in his voice.

I arched an eyebrow, though he wouldn't be able to see it. "No wonder your whole family was sorted into Gryffindor."

I heard his amused snort. "What do you do?"

"Besides sort through my sister's wedding gifts?"

"I mean for work." I'd gathered that was what he'd meant, I just didn't really want to talk about my hobby.

I sighed, rolling onto my back and looking up towards the ceiling. With a thought, the lights came back up, just enough so that I could make out the white-painted ceiling above us. "I don't. My parents are rather conservative. I'm supposed to stay home and wait for a proper wizard to take me away."

"Well, who's a proper wizard?"

I sighed again. This was a conversation I'd had over and over, though the contents of the conversation had changed. "My mother was an Abbott. As she would say, the last Abbott to make a worthy marriage." I shook my head. "Her mother was a Bulstrode, and my paternal grandmother was a Goyle. From the standpoint of not being too closely related, acceptable marriages would be with a Lestrange, a Black, a Weasley, a Longbottom, a Nott, a Malfoy, or a Zabini. Or, of course, some other pure-blood family from another country." I lifted my arms and reached back to clasp my hands behind my head, resting on them. "I was supposed to marry a Lestrange."

Weasley sat up, and even in the dim light I could register his expression of distaste out of the corner of my eye. "You mean..."

"Rabastan. As soon as I was finished school. But the outcome of the war really mucked up Mother's plans for me. I'm lucky Mr and Mrs Malfoy didn't go through with the divorce they were talking about, or I'm certain she would be pushing me at him." I shook my head again.

"They were thinking about..." He sounded quite surprised.

"Still are, really. And now that Draco's married and the disgrace wouldn't ruin his chances of finding a good match, I assume it's only a matter of time." Gossip was a large part of my life. My parents had known that the Malfoy couple was likely to divorce, but as long as it happened after Tori and Draco were married, it wouldn't reflect on our family. Not publicly, anyway.

"Mother would prefer me not to marry Blaise, because of all that business with his mother. There's no proof, of course, but it's a safe bet that she was responsible for killing all of her husbands. Sirius Black was killed, my sister had to go and marry Draco... Your family is right out."

"Because we're blood-traitors?" I could hear the rise of his temper in his voice. He was fiercely loyal to his family, that much was obvious.

"Because you're poor."

"My brother's quite well-off!" He sounded offended on his brother's behalf.

"George? I imagine he would be acceptable only if there were no one better, but your family has no money." I smirked. "Shame, too, your other brother, the one who was a prefect when we started school, is quite handsome."

I could feel him looking at me in silence for a few moments, as though he was trying to decide if I was serious or not. "Neville?"

"Not acceptable until after the conclusion of the war, when everything changed. His grandmother is quite wealthy. Still, because of our families' historical alliances, I've certainly been discouraged from pursuing a match with him." My mother's words. "Which leaves Theo." At least until the Malfoys got their divorce. I shook my head again. I could hear the distaste in my voice, there was no doubt that he heard it as well.

"Why don't you just leave? Move out or something? Find a nice flat somewhere else, get a job..."

I'd considered it. "In order to start over on your own, you need some capital. I certainly won't be granted any from my parents, and unless I was very careful where I found employment, they would ensure that I wasn't able to keep it."

He was silent, digesting what I'd said. "You're smart, Greengrass. I mean, really smart. I'm sure you could figure something out."

"Any of the places my parents don't have influence over, either I or they have... history with." Despite the end of the war several years ago, there was still an unspoken divide in wizarding society, one that was very hard to get past.

He looked at me for a few more moments, then settled back down again, his head on the pillow. I rolled onto my side, again rolling away from him, and we lay there in silence.

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! I tend to write in fits and spurts, so I may not update immediately, but there will be an update coming!**


	4. Chapter 4

Ron Weasley took up the entire bed. When I woke up the next morning, he was on his stomach and had sprawled his long arms and legs out to the point that I was right on the edge of the bed, and his hand was still against my shoulder.

I assumed it was morning. I felt sufficiently rested. There was no spill of sunlight around the top of the heavy curtains, the only light in the room came from the partially open door to the lavatory. I slipped out from under the duvet and stood, stretching my arms up above my head, then moved around to the other side of the bed where his watch was sitting on the white-painted bedside table. I lifted it up, squinting in the dim light to read the position of the hands. 8:00. Definitely morning. I wasn't entirely surprised that it still looked to be dark outside.

With me gone from the bed, his annex of it was complete as his hand moved into the spot where my shoulder had been. Then his long fingers flexed as though he was sightlessly searching for something, and then he lifted his head and looked at the spot I'd just vacated.

"I'm here," I said softly, and the relief in his eyes when his head whipped around and he saw me was almost palpable. "It's eight."

His head lowered to the pillow, still facing me. "Sorry," he said, voice thick with sleep. "I'm not used to sleeping with anyone. Beside anyone, I mean. At least, not without being... intimate."

"It's fine." To tell the truth, it had been more than a little reassuring to wake up with him touching me- I'd known without looking that he was still there with me, and I wasn't alone. "Did you want a shower this morning? I can fix more of Draco's clothes to fit you. The shirts might be a little loose, but it's no trouble to make the sleeves longer." Draco was lean, but the wizard on the bed in front of me was built like the long end of a broom.

He appeared to think for a moment. "A shower would be nice." He retracted his limbs and got out of bed as well, sliding his watch over his wrist when I handed it to him. "It's still dark outside?"

The question sounded rhetorical, but I answered anyway. "Yes."

We went back up to Draco's room, and he picked out some clothes, after grousing that nothing really looked comfortable. Our generation, as a whole, had adopted Muggle clothes for casual wear, but apparently Draco's version of casual wasn't the same as Ron's.

He ended up with a black shirt and a black pair of trousers. Even though Draco had an ensuite bathroom, we went back down to the room we had shared so that he could shower, the clothes hanging over the top of the privacy screen. I used the opportunity to get dressed myself, then sat in the chair he'd occupied last night, my feet crossed on the cushion in a way my mother never would have approved of.

When the water shut off, the clothes disappeared on the other side of the screen, and in a moment, he came out. A flick of my wand lengthened the arms and legs of his outfit, but he still looked uncomfortable.

"I look like a crow." He looked cross and sounded almost like he was having a sulk. Almost.

"It's black. Everyone looks good in black." My words seemed to cheer him slightly, but I suspected that his problem with the clothes was more about who they belonged to, and less about what he looked like in them.

I unfolded my legs, setting my feet on the floor, and rose to stand up next to him. "You may have helped me with the research last night, but I'm still holding you accountable for making sure we don't starve."

I could see his smile as he offered me his arm, and together we went down to the larger kitchen. The washing up had long since been completed, but otherwise, the kitchen was just as it had been the night before.

"Tea or coffee?" He'd been scanning the kitchen, but when I spoke, his eyes came sharply to me. I smirked. "I can manage that much, at least."

"Coffee in the morning."

We moved apart, him in search of food and me in search of coffee. I had just finished grinding the beans and was pouring them into the coffee press when he spoke. "One egg or two, Greengrass?"

"Daphne. We slept together, I think you can call me Daphne." I felt him looking at me, the weight of his eyes causing a prickle at the back of my neck. "Two, please."

I made a pretty good cup of coffee, but the breakfast he pulled together after recruiting me to help find utensils and pans to cook with was nothing short of amazing. I told him so, and he ducked his head and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, his ears bright red. "That was nothing," he mumbled. Apparently he wasn't used to accepting praise.

The rest of the day was spent in fruitless research, as were the two following days. The stack of books we'd looked through without finding anything useful in them was growing higher and higher. Ron was trying, but the enthusiasm with which he'd happily dug into the books on the first night quickly waned, and his temper was growing shorter and shorter. He was unmistakably frustrated, not only with the complete lack of progress, but with being cooped up in the Malfoy's house, with no one but me for companionship. From what I understood, he was quite close to the various members of his rather large family and the friends he'd gone through school with, and being apart from them was very wearing. I could certainly sympathize with that. My sister was my closest friend, and being apart from her was difficult. It may have been easier for me, though, because I was already accustomed to the idea that I wouldn't be able to spend as much time with her, at least not right away, because of her new marriage.

I had a great deal of practice resisting being baited into an argument, but at last I snapped back at him, and he ended up storming out of the library, a great slam of the door punctuating his departure.

For the first few minutes I was glad. I'd been getting more than a little sick of his crossness and his baiting comments, and the sudden silence was quite nice. The walls of the manor were insulated quite well, not only by their physical construction but by magic as well, and when doors were closed, sound tended not to carry.

Seconds passed by, though, and I grew very aware of just how silent it was. There were windows at the far end of the room, of course, swathed in heavy gray-and-black damask, but the darkness on the other side of them seemed almost to press them inward. I knew it was just my imagination, my mind taking my sudden nerves and playing tricks on me, but I started to get very uncomfortable, regretting whatever it was I'd said. It was an offhand comment, snide and biting, so meaningless that it was completely forgettable. But it had driven him away, and I was deeply sorry, now that he was gone.

A chill started up from the base of my spine. I took the book from my lap, standing up and putting it on the seat of the chair I'd just vacated. Where would he have gone? The kitchen? Tea was his drink of choice, I'd found out, at least after the first cup or two of coffee when he woke up, so maybe he'd gone to pour himself a cup of tea.

The ballroom was on the way to the kitchen, and a quick glance through the open doors showed he wasn't in there. We tended not to close any of the doors in the house unless one of us was using the loo, there was really no need to. Nor was he in either of the two kitchens, I discovered in a wave of panic. My bare feet scuffed across the floor as I turned and headed up to our room, picking up speed until I was running. He wasn't there, either.

"Ron?" I yelled, my voice loud in the stillness of the house. It was swallowed by the the carpet and upholstered furniture, and I moved back out to the hall. "Ron?" I called again, and my voice carried a little better this time, shrill in my desperation to find him. "Ron?" I was maybe two minutes away from a full-blown panic attack.

"Here!" I heard distantly, his voice sounding like it was coming from the floor below. I ran in that direction, out-of-breath when I rounded the corner and saw him in the doorway to the room we'd sorted the gifts in. I hadn't even bothered to look at this room as I'd gone by, neither one of us had gone into it since we'd sorted gifts. I wasn't surprised to learn he'd been able to get past my locking spell, he was an Auror, and I hadn't tried particularly hard.

I moved quickly to him, decorum completely gone as I threw my arms about him, the side of my face pressed to his chest.

After just a second, he patted my shoulder somewhat awkwardly. "Sorry," he offered, sounding more than a little sheepish.

"I'm sorry, too," I said, pulling away and looking up at him. "I shouldn't have said that." Whatever it was I'd said. I was deeply sorry, though, not knowing the specific words I needed to apologize for didn't lessen the sincerity of my apology.

He nodded. "It's hard for me to sit and do nothing. You, you're a book type. But I can't just sit in that room, staring at useless books, feeling the seconds wasting away." He ducked his head in the way that said he was embarrassed.

"What were you doing?" I made sure my tone was curious, not suspicious.

"I was in here, just casting spells at the box. Nothing happened, but I had to do something."

I bit back a scathing statement about being lucky he was still in one piece, sure he wouldn't appreciate me lecturing him. "Why don't we take a break? Go have a cup of tea or something."

Sighing, he nodded, and we turned and walked together towards the large kitchen at the end of the hall, him automatically offering me his arm. In the kitchen I got us each a cup of tea, extra sugar for him, and we sat together on the island counter in the middle of the room.

"What do you want to do?" I asked him.

"Leave." I looked up at him, and he was staring at the open door. "We tried going to the Ministry, we've sat in the library and researched until we were blue in the face, but we haven't tried actually just leaving."

"You mean, just going out the front gates and walking?" My dubiousness filled my voice. It was still pitch-black outside, I certainly didn't relish the idea of walking into the all-encompassing nothing.

"It would be something to try." He sounded defensive, and I knew without looking that his ears would have started their glow.

I sighed. He'd been mostly patient for the last few days, and he was right, we hadn't tried it. "All right."

"Yeah?" He looked at me for a couple of seconds as if to be sure he'd heard me correctly. He drained his tea and set the empty cup on the counter, sliding down to his feet and holding out his hand.

Sighing again, I took his hand, letting him guide me down from the counter, and then wrapped both of my hands around his arm, my wand securely in my pocket. "I'm not going to lose you," I vowed, and he nodded, looking just a little bit amused.

Stopping only to get proper shoes on, we headed out the front door. We hadn't gone outside since that first night, and it was still just as black and foreboding as it had been. It was early afternoon, but it was as dark as a midnight storm, and eerily still. There were no stars above us, no moon, no glow of light from distant neighbours. The darkness seemed to swallow everything outside of the light from the house and the circle of brightness at the tip of his wand.

My grip on his arm grew tighter and tighter as we walked down the hard-packed gravel drive, until I was clutching him as though I was worried he would vanish right in front of me. I was actually worried about that. There was something distinctly unfriendly about the silent haze of blackness that waited on the other side of the wrought iron gate.

The gate swung shut by itself, weighted to do so to avoid needing constant attention, but the sound of metal on metal as it latched itself was terribly final. I did not want to be doing this.

"Daphne, you're hurting my arm." There was a touch of wryness to his voice.

I loosened my grip just a little, as much as I could bear to. "Sorry." I wasn't really sorry. I really wanted to turn around and run back to the lighted confines of the house. He, however, looked eager at the idea of having something to do. I swallowed and moved as close to him as I could without stepping on his feet.

He started forward, moving me along with him. The distance between us and the wall of blackness wasn't nearly long enough, and then we were stepping into it.

At first, it was like stepping into a dark fog. The air felt wet, thick, invasive. It swallowed the light from Ron's wand, shrouding us completely in blackness. Still we moved forward, pressing on into the absolute nothingness.

I opened my mouth to speak. Noise moved up from my vocal cords, but the words were immediately swallowed by the thick air surrounding us.

It was beginning to get sticky, an uncomfortable, clinging feeling that felt as though I wasn't wearing clothes, that bypassed my skin and seeped uncomfortably through my bones. I wanted to tell him that I needed to go back, but I couldn't. I tried stopping and tugging on his arm, but he was determinedly moving forward, and it was either move with him or lose my grip on his arm and become lost in the darkness by myself.

I was reminded of when we'd had Dementors at the school, any positive emotions I might have had were being drowned in this damp, pervasive blackness. I was numb, but it was a despairing sort of numb, the kind of numb that was convincing me that there was no way out, and we were going to wander about in this thick fog forever.

It was filling my lungs, creeping insidiously inside like I'd been breathing in noxious smoke. It grew painful to breathe, and I struggled to take deep, even breaths from my diaphragm, the way I'd learned to support my voice for singing. Again, I tugged on Ron's arm, but he pushed blindly forward.

I cursed, my words lost before they even left my mouth. Suddenly, instead of holding Ron's arm, he was dragging me down, as though he'd fallen over. We were no longer moving forward, but I could barely rouse the gratitude I wanted to feel. I shifted my grip on his arm and lurched backwards, still clutching him tightly. I moved one step, then another, then another. I was dragging him along the ground, but my sympathy was almost non-existent. He'd done this. He'd kept pressing forward, past the point of reason, until he'd passed out.

He was heavy. I didn't want to levitate him and risk losing him in the suffocating darkness. I tugged and tugged, making slow progress back the way we came, getting light-headed as it was harder to control my breathing while I was pulling him along with me.

My head was pounding by the time my lungs started clearing. I wanted to sink down to the ground right there to catch my breath, but I couldn't. There was nothing in front of me, I couldn't even see the wizard I was dragging along with me. I had to keep going.

I saw his hand first, then my hands locked around his elbow. I kept pulling and pulling until my backside met the cold iron gate, and I released him and slumped to the ground.

He wasn't moving. His eyes were closed, but his chest rose and fell as he breathed. Shallow breaths, not real breaths, but at least his lungs were still working.

"Damn you, Ron!" I snapped at him, pushing a lock of my soggy dark hair out of my face. I took a deep breath and coughed, expelling the slimy coldness from my lungs. We couldn't stay here. Both of us were soaked through, and the temperature of a late June evening long after dark is still too cold to stay in wet clothes.

Now, though, I was able to pull out my wand. After touching it to the gate to open it, I levitated Ron's still form, guiding him through the gate before me, and up the long drive to the house. Maneuvering him through the front door was a bit tricky simply because of his height, but I managed. The stairs, however, were going to be impossible. Not that it wouldn't serve him right if I bumped his head against a riser or two.

There were a front room and a drawing room amongst the assortment of first-storey rooms, but the library seemed like a better option. My body was tired, worn out from the effort of dragging him, but I had no desire for sleep. In the library, I could build up the fire and do something productive while I waited for him to wake up.

The question of _if_ he would wake up crossed my mind, but I quickly pushed it away. He had to wake up. I needed him to wake up. The comforting stillness of the house was immediate, his shallow breathing not audible unless I was right beside him. The darkness loomed in at me, and I made the lights come up in all the rooms I could see.

I got him through the library door lowering him at last on the thick, dark carpet in front of the fireplace. A wave of my wand set a fire blazing in the dark nook, and I rested my hands on my hips, staring down at the unconscious wizard.

I had to get him dry, that was a priority. And get a blanket or two. A pillow wouldn't be amiss, either. "Why didn't you stop?" I demanded, but there was no answer other than the shallow rise and fall of his chest. That was not natural. I was used to the rhythm of his breathing when he slept, and this wasn't it.

I coughed again, an indefinable bitter taste coming out of my mouth. It was ridiculous, but my next thought was that it was what black would taste like. I waved my wand at his unconscious form, setting his wet clothes to steaming as they dried around his body. "Don't move," I instructed him somewhat uselessly as I went back to the still-open door. I took a glance back at him before running through the house.

I pulled the the duvet off of the bed in our room and grabbed two pillows, only taking enough time to change into my nightgown and dressing gown before taking them all back to the library.

He was where I'd left him, although he seemed to be breathing at least a little more easily. That might have been my imagination, but the thought made me feel at least a little better. I walked through the room, dropping the heavy duvet on his legs before kneeling down to arrange it around him, tucking it under him for warmth. I propped up his head and slipped one of the pillows under it, ensuring he would be as comfortable as possible until he awoke.

I'd taken the opportunity to check the time from the watch on his wrist while I'd arranged him with the duvet. It was shortly after five. Too early for pyjamas, but I wasn't really at a point where I cared. I did want some tea, though, and I took a moment to go and make a pot for myself.

As a general rule, we contained our eating to the kitchen, but I brought the entire tea service with me back to the library. I was long past caring about anything, really. I set the silver tray on the table by where Ron was laying in front of the fire, pouring myself a cup before going in search of a new book.

I found a likely title and took it back to the main part of the library, settling myself down in the chair to read. It was difficult to concentrate, though, and I kept noticing that my attention was wandering and my foot was bouncing up and down.

I looked down at the wizard on the floor. His red hair curled damply around his face, it looked like it was a little past overdue for a trim. His blue eyes were closed, and yet he still looked exhausted, as though he was gaining no rest from his unconscious state. He looked pale, more so than normal, his freckles standing out sharply against his skin.

The rise and fall of his chest was barely discernible under the duvet, but it was still there. He seemed to be breathing easier still, as though his body was growing accustomed to being out of that horrible fog again.

"Don't ever do that again," I told him, but my voice just sounded tired, lacking any real rancour. Mostly, I was just glad that we were out of it, that we had both made it back to the house, that I wasn't alone.

**A/N: Thank you for the review love! It's only been a week since my last update, hopefully the next one will come as quickly!**


	5. Chapter 5

A heavy hand on my shoulder made me wake with a start. I gasped and sat straight up, my eyes flying open. Immediately I noticed that Ron was missing from the floor in front of the fire, the duvet pushed carelessly to the side, and there was a moment of blinding panic. Reason caught up with me, though, and I realised that the freckled hand on my shoulder belonged to the very wizard I was looking for. I sat back in my seat, heart still pounding in my chest, looking up at the wizard to my left.

Ron was looking down at me, his hand dropping back to his side. There was a somewhat sheepish expression on his face. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"I'm fine," I insisted automatically, then looked from his blue eyes back to the abandoned bedding on the floor. "How are you feeling?" He looked better, certainly. He was no longer deathly pale, and the shadows under his eyes had abated somewhat, like unconsciousness had turned into sleep somewhere in the night.

"Bit stiff from sleeping on the floor. And my arm hurts like I was blocking quaffles in my sleep." He worked his shoulder as if to demonstrate.

I had a fairly good idea why Ron's arm hurt, and quite likely the source of some of the stiffness in his back. My own back ached, probably a result of my exertion the night before as well, and the stiffness in my neck was causing a headache to creep forward along my scalp. These chairs, however comfortable they were to sit in, were not conducive to a comfortable night's sleep.

I nodded. The book I'd fallen asleep reading was still open across my knees, and I gently picked it up, leaning over to set on the floor. The blood surged through my temples, and I had to close my eyes at the pain that throbbed through my head.

"You all right?"

I righted myself, eyes still closed, groping blindly for the wand I'd left on the table beside me. "Fine. My neck is a little stiff." The admission that I was in discomfort at all was a testament to how comfortable I felt around him.

"I'll get it." In just another second, I felt the warmth of the pain-alleviation charm spreading across my neck and shoulders and up onto the back of my head. The pain settled itself down to a dull ache, which meant he had realised that I'd downplayed how much it hurt.

My fingers closed over my wand just a moment too late, and I opened my eyes and looked up at Ron. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He smiled down at me, eyes bright and alert. "What happened last night?"

I considered the question for a moment. It was a fair question, I just wasn't up to answering it just yet. "I'll tell you over breakfast." I was ravenous. I'd ended up not eating anything before I fell asleep last night, and this morning my stomach was letting me know that it wasn't all right with that. "Are you up to making anything, or do you want me to do it?" I hadn't put any concerted effort into learning what he did to prepare food, but I was fairly certain I could muddle through it, especially if he was there to provide guidance.

"I feel fine, just a bit sore is all." He held out his hand, and I took it and let him pull me upright.

I still felt somewhat as though I'd spent the night at the bottom of a bottle of Firewhisky instead of reading in the library, and I stretched my neck, pressing the fingers of my free hand into it to try and quell the cramped muscles. "Will you show me how to do it?"

His eyes widened in surprise. "What, you mean make breakfast?"

I nodded, smoothing down the front of my sleep-rumpled dressing gown like I was brushing away his reaction. "Yes. I think it would be something that might come in handy at some point. I was thinking about a shower after we ate, I neglected to eat last night and I'm afraid my stomach is going to start yelling about it."

"Yeah, all right." I heard the smile in his voice, but I refused to look up into his face, instead looping my hand around his elbow and staring straight into the fireplace.

We went out of the library and down to the kitchen, where he showed me the finer arts of cooking breakfast. It wasn't difficult, it was just a matter of keeping an eye on several things at the same time, and knowing what food was supposed to look like when it was cooked properly. I burned the toast, simply because I didn't know that it would cook as fast as it did, but the rest of it turned out fine.

We settled ourselves on the island counter to eat, and I related the events of the previous afternoon.

"No wonder my arm feels like I've been wrestling Charlie all night," he said when I wound down, rubbing his shoulder ruefully. "Did you have to yank on it quite so hard?"

I opened my mouth for a sharp retort, but the gleam in his eye told me that he might be teasing me. "It was either that or tie a string around your neck like a puppy, and I was fresh out of string. Of course, I may have had an easier time if you didn't insist on filling your boots with rocks." He grinned at my answer. Something had changed between us. Where there had before existed an ease, now there was a level of comfort. "I'm serious, Ron, if you ever try to do that again, I'll stun you."

He sobered, all traces of teasing gone from his face. "No, I've quite learned my lesson. However we do get out of here, it's not walking into the darkness." A look of curiosity took over. "How did you manage to keep from passing out? Obviously we went out to the same point, and I'm incredibly grateful you didn't, but what did you do?"

I frowned at the crumbs left on my plate, my eyebrows drawing down into the bridge of my nose.. "I know how to breathe properly."

I heard him inhale, then exhale in an exaggerated fashion. "I dunno, I think I've got it worked out pretty well."

I closed my eyes for a long moment before opening them again, resigned to the fact that this would need to be explained. Shaking my head, I placed my plate on the counter beside me, and then slid to the floor. "Stand up," I told him.

Bemused, he did so, alighting to his feet just in front of me. I went around to face him. "Breathe in again," I directed, putting my hand on his chest, the fabric of his borrowed black shirt smooth under my fingers. As I'd expected, his chest moved up as his lungs filled. "Now out. You're breathing from your lungs."

"As opposed to what, my foot?"

I shot him a look, unamused at his cheek, before turning my attention back to his torso. "There's a muscle across here," I lifted my hand from his chest and ran it across his torso, just under his ribs, "called the diaphragm. When you breathe properly from your diaphragm, you have improved lung capacity and a greater control over your airflow." Another glance up showed a rather dubious expression. "Here." I took his hand and placed it over his diaphragm, my hand looking rather small over his. "Breathe in again." He obligingly inhaled. "And here." I moved his hand to my diaphragm and took a deep, measured breath. "Feel the difference?"

"Yeah." There was a catch in his voice, and when I looked up, I could see... Something I'd never expected to see in his eyes. He was looking at me... Much the same way Theo did. Only it was different, somehow. More polite, I think that was the best way to describe it.

When he caught my gaze, his eyes immediately slid away, his ears glowing so familiarly. It was another few seconds before his hand moved away, slipping out from under both of mine. My abdomen suddenly felt cold, even under my dressing gown and my nightgown, as though his hand had been a source of valuable heat.

Stranger still, I felt something completely different from the way I felt when Theo looked at me like that. Theo's inviting gazes always made me quell a long-suffering sigh, but now I actually wanted to follow Ron as he stepped away, turning to look out of the open door, into the hallway.

I didn't. I was acutely aware of how grimy I felt. Whatever we'd been pushing through the night before had been wet, but it hadn't been water, and it felt like it had left a fine film all over my skin. I was regretting not taking the opportunity to wash when I'd gotten us back to the house. "A shower would be a good idea, I think."

"Yeah. Feels like I'm covered in flour." I raised an eyebrow, and he shrugged with a slightly guilty grin on his face. "Everything becomes a weapon when you've got six siblings."

Never having been covered in flour, I was prepared to take his word for it. "Did you want to shower first?"

His eyes came back to me sharply, his ears unexpectedly so red that I was surprised I couldn't feel the heat from them from where I was. "No. No, you go first. I know how you feel about your hair." His hand came up between us, moving slowly toward me like he was going to lift a lock of hair from my cheek. His hand stopped just shy of my skin and hovered there for a moment before dropping back down to his side. He looked away again, and the skin across the back of his neck matched his ears.

The air between us felt heavy, expectant. "Shall we?"

He offered me his arm with a glance, and together we went up to our room.

We didn't really talk while we took turns in the shower, and when he emerged fully dressed from behind the screen, I lengthened his sleeves and trouser legs with barely a thought.

"It's going to be a bit weird, I think, having clothes that fit without you tailoring them. When we get out of here, I mean." He looked like he was about to lean against the screen, which would be a very bad idea, but seemed to realize it at the last moment, and instead stood with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

"You could always start buying your clothing too short, and then coming to see me."

"At your family home? I'm sure your parents would enjoy that." The easy grin that covered his face made me smile too, warming me from the inside out.

I could almost see the look on my mother's face, like she'd put a fresh lemon in her mouth. "All the better." I stood, smoothing my own wide-legged trousers down over my thighs. "Are you content to sit in the library with me this morning, or did you want to do something else?" His face started to pull downwards, turning from his happy grin into a familiar scowl, but I shook my head. "No sarcasm, Ron. I need to get back in there and find out what's going on, but I understand if you'd like a bit of a break first." I was itching to get back into the library. I felt like I was getting closer to finding an answer- that may have been my own desperation, but I felt like I needed to press on just a little further.

But Ron had grown desperately restless, enough that he'd been willing to do something very reckless, and I didn't want him to be driven to that again.

He looked a little relieved, his face relaxing back into more comfortable pleasant lines. "No. Thanks, but I think last night was enough excitement for a while."

I nodded. "All right. But if you start feeling like that again, tell me. We'll figure something out."

"Thanks, Daph." That look was back in his eyes, making me realise I had absolutely no desire to correct him about my name. Tori was the only person I allowed to call me something other than my proper name, but something about the polite heat in his eyes made me not mind at all.

After just a moment, though, he looked away and offered me his arm. Together, we went to settle in to the library for the day.

He spent the day in the chair next to mine, getting a new book when he'd finished looking through the one he'd abandoned only yesterday. That night, I helped him prepare dinner, and we sat on the island counter long after we'd finished eating, passing a bottle of Mr Malfoy's very excellent Firewhisky back and forth until both of us were not entirely sober.

"We should get up to bed," he said, setting the bottle very gingerly on the counter and looking at it. There was still quite a bit of the amber liquid left, catching the light in a glittery sort of way.

"Why, because you have to get up early for work?"

He looked at me for a moment before answering. "I didn't exactly get a good sleep last night, and I'm pretty sure you've yawned three times in the last minute."

That was a fair point, and I ceded it with a nod. He slid off the counter and offered me his hand, and after helping me down, we went up to our room together. We both turned to face the other way to get changed, and when I turned back around it was... strange. He'd been sleeping without any sort of pyjama shirt since the first night we'd been here by ourselves, and this really seemed to be the first time I'd noticed. His torso was just as pale and freckled as the parts that showed when he was dressed for the day, lean and just a bit soft in the middle. Blaise was the only wizard I'd known who'd made the effort to tone his muscles the way Muggle girls seemed to appreciate, but Ron wasn't unpleasant to look at.

He seemed to notice me watching, and I raised an eyebrow in challenge, but he didn't comment on it. Instead he stood there for another moment before getting into his side of the bed, settling down on his back. I followed suit.

Nighttime had become our time for conversation. Sleeping beside him had become more comfortable, but it was still nice to just lie in the dark and talk. As soon as we were both in bed, the light in the room dimmed, faint illumination still being provided from the partially open door to the bathroom.

"Is being an Auror... enough?" I asked him. He didn't seem to do well with inactivity, and I recalled a rather large stack of paper on his desk at the Ministry. I was staring at the ceiling, my hands clasped loosely under my head. "I mean, does it let keep you busy enough?"

"Sometimes. At first it was, there was barely a day that we were in the Ministry. But things have settled down a lot, and I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk moving paper around." I heard him shift beside me. "It gets a bit much sometimes."

"Have you thought about doing anything else?"

"Yeah. Most of my time off is spent helping George at the shop. He's been, well, he doesn't really hint, our George. He's been outright saying that he'd like me to help more, and that would mean stepping down from my post as an Auror."

"Is that something you want to do?"

"I do." There was a frank openness, a confidence in his voice that I admired.

"I'm surprised you haven't, then." He was silent when I said that, so I continued. "You seem to prefer jumping into things with both feet, rather than just pecking at them half-heartedly."

He snorted with amusement. "Something like that. I'm just a bit..." I heard him sigh, and the bed moved as he shifted again. "It's not that easy. You know George started the shop with Fred, and they were always brilliant together, Fred and George."

"You're worried about letting your brother down?" I'd learned many things about Ron the past few days, more than I had the entire time I'd known him. I'd learned that, despite everything he'd been through, and everything he'd done, there was a stripe of insecurity that he couldn't quite shake. It came out at the oddest times, and it seemed to be displaying itself now.

He sighed again, a noisy expulsion of air that shifted the air currents towards me, despite him being most of a metre away. "I'm worried I won't live up to Fred."

I turned onto my side, planting my elbow on the pillow and propping myself up against my open palm. The light from the other room provided just enough illumination to see him staring at the ceiling, brooding. "You won't, Ron." He turned his head toward me and opened his mouth, face already drawing down into a scowl, but I spoke over whatever he'd been about to say. "You won't for the simple reason that you're not Fred. You're Ron. And while you'll never be as good at being Fred as Fred was, there's no one else in the world who will be as good at being you as you are."

The crossness dropped off his face, replaced by a more speculative look. And after just a moment, that was replaced by an entirely different look, one that made me settle down on my back again to avoid moving closer until I was cuddled up against him.

Which brought up an entirely different question. "If you spend all of your off-time there, your girlfriend must feel a little neglected."

Another snort of amusement. "I reckon she would if I had one."

I raised an eyebrow. "I thought you and Granger..." That's what the entire world had been talking about, once the furor over Harry Potter had died down. That had died down too, over the years, but I was certain that if they'd split, the news would have shut down for the day just to cover the momentous event.

"Not for a long while, now. We tried, but... She's too much like family. But she wants some peace and quiet to get her career sorted before the entire wizarding population realises she's single, and starts intruding on her personal life."

I nodded. I could certainly understand that. If everyone were to find out that she and Ron were no longer together, her personal life would suddenly become very public. She would be pursued relentlessly, no doubt, and there would be no end of articles about her like the one that Skeeter witch had released when Granger was in her fourth year. "That's very generous of you."

"I don't know about all of that. I don't really have time for a witch right now anyway." He paused for a moment. "What about you? I know you're not involved with anyone right now, but have you been?" I heard him shift, and I could feel his eyes on me now as his shadowy shape rose up beside me in the dark.

We'd talked about his family, and my family, and different things that had happened in our lives, but this was the first time the conversation turned more intimately personal. "I was with Adrian for a while."

"What, Pucey?" I could practically see his eyebrows climbing up his forehead.

"Yes." I sighed. I felt a twinge of sadness at the memory, and I desperately needed to change the subject. "We grow up very sheltered. The first few years at Hogwarts are a reflection of that, we behave just as we would were we still at home. But then the hormones start really mucking around, and..." I paused for a moment, considering what I was about to say. "Did you know that girls can get into the boys' dorms at Hogwarts?"

"Yeah..." The single word was drawn out in a manner that managed to be both horrified and curious, like he knew what I was about to say, and both did and didn't want to hear it.

"If you tell my sister, I swear I will kill you. But I was... involved with Draco when we were still at school." I shook my head at the memory. "And Blaise. Our choices are rather limited by who we're not related to, and I was lucky enough that three of the boys in my year were available to me. Not that Theo and I have ever..." I trailed off, shaking my head again.

The silence coming from my left spoke of a wizard who was trying to decide exactly what question he wanted to ask. "What's your problem with Nott? I mean, I know he's an unrelenting twat, but so's Draco."

I had to smile at his words. This was definitely an easier conversation to have than one about Adrian. "Draco is more open-minded and more easily... managed. Tori will be able to do as she pleases. Theo is rather more conservative, and rather more set in his ways."

He was quiet for a moment, thinking on what I'd said. "It's hard to imagine you letting anyone not let you do as you please."

I sighed again. "It's easy with you, Ron. You're different. But I know that eventually my mother will just wear me down, and I'll make a good marriage like I'm supposed to, and be a good wife like I'm supposed to, and the part of me that..." I took a deep breath to stop talking before I told him more than I wanted to. "It won't be all bad, of course. Theo would never hurt me, I don't think Mr Malfoy would either, but I won't be able to truly be myself." My voice was carefully neutral, but he seemed to take that for what it was, the cover for my unpleasant emotions. His hand came out and settled on the arm that was farthest away from him, and he started gently pulling, urging me close to him.

I moved over until I was resting my head on his pillow, my hip and right arm pressed up against him, and his hand moved down to my waist. "Turn over, Daph, it's hard to give you a cuddle when you're lying there all stiff like that." He managed to sound both amused and exasperated.

I turned to face him, and his arm closed over my back as I moved my own hand tentatively around his lean torso, hiding my face in his neck. After a few minutes, I moved my head back on the pillow to look at him. It was impossible to make out the blue of his eyes when it was this dim, but he was looking at me. "This would be easier if I turned over. My arm's going to fall asleep."

His eyes widened a little at the implication of what I said, but then he nodded. "Sure."

I moved away far enough to turn onto my other side, then settled back against him, my back snuggled against his chest. His arm was around me, tightly enough that he was still holding me, but loosely enough that I didn't feel trapped. I could feel the warmth of his skin through my silky nightgown. It felt comfortable, and oddly freeing, in a way.

"You could work at the shop," he suggested after a while, and it was a little odd to hear him speaking from so closely behind me.

"You mean your brother's shop?" I raised an eyebrow. "You really think George would agree to hire me?"

"I reckon he would if I talked to him about it. And your parents definitely don't have any influence there. It wouldn't be much, but it would be enough to get you set up on your own."

I considered it, really taking a moment to think it through. I hadn't considered it as an option before, I was fairly certain George Weasley would just dismiss me out of hand. But if Ron could talk him into it... "They might decide that since I had my own job, I no longer needed to stay with them." I was speaking of my parents. "Before I had enough capital for a flat, I mean."

"Stay with me." The words came out so quickly, I wondered if he'd even had any time to think about them beforehand. "I have an extra room, and we seem to be getting on well enough here. It wouldn't take that long until you were able to get your own place."

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I... It's a tempting offer. Thank you."

"But...?"

Shaking my head, I closed my eyes. "It would be a big change." As much as I might not like it, I was accustomed to living my life a certain way, a way I wouldn't be able to live if I moved in with Ron, and then into my own flat. The idea of that much change was daunting.

He seemed to understand, only saying, "Change can be good. Think about it, Daph."

"I will."

**A/N: Thank you for the lovely reviews! The next chapter is being somewhat stubborn.**


	6. Chapter 6

I didn't want to go back. It was a silly thought, a ridiculous impulse that occurred to me as my eyes scanned the yellowed pages in front of me without really absorbing any of the information contained there. I closed my book with a sigh, lifting it from my lap to add to the stack of already-read books beside me. The library was in complete disarray, and we were still no closer to discovering what was going on than we had been on our first journey into the library.

I did want to go back, of course. I missed my sister terribly, and there was no escaping the looming darkness that pressed so unpleasantly in on the house. But there was something very easy, very comfortable about being here with just Ron.

And that, of course, wouldn't last. It was only a matter of time before he got restless again, and I knew he had a large contingent of people that he was missing, a feeling that would only intensify the longer we were here.

No, we needed to get back. Maybe a better sentiment would be to wish that we didn't need to.

Lifting my eyes to the shelves of old tomes lining the wall to my left, I could understand Ron's restlessness of the other day. He was sitting in the chair beside mine, one foot crossed over the other knee, the book he was reading opened over the triangle made by his legs, seeming completely at ease. I was getting frustrated at our lack of progress, feeling like it was somehow my fault. I was supposed to be managing our research while he was taking care of our meals. So far, I'd turned up exactly nothing, and we continued to eat delicious food every day. Perhaps the comparison wasn't entirely fair, but my conscience still nagged at me.

I studied him out of the corner of my eye. He was engrossed in his own book, red hair falling over his face and obscuring his brilliant blue eyes from my view. He'd grown more used to the mono-colour wardrobe available to him, though he'd joked that once we got out of here, he was never wearing black again. It did look good on him.

We'd woken up that morning in much the same position we'd fallen asleep, with the addition of his face buried in the hair at the back of my neck. My stirring had caused his body to react in a very physical way, the way that wizards of all sorts seem to in the morning, and his arms tightened around me. I could have sworn I felt his lips brush against the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck. We'd lingered there for a short time, but then had gotten out of bed and gone about our morning routine like we usually did.

There was a new tension between us, not exactly uncomfortable. I was fairly sure that it wasn't completely one-sided, if the looks he'd given me after I'd showered and while we'd prepared breakfast were any indication. No, I recognised the signs of attraction from both of us- the lingering glances, the flimsy excuses to touch each other in ways that were innocent and yet slightly more than just casual.

Rising with a sigh, I went over to the window and pushed aside the heavy damask curtain. I looked out into the darkness beyond, a shudder jolting up my spine as I tapped my fingernails noiselessly against the thick fabric. The thick blackness pressing in on the house wasn't simply encompassing, it was heavy, wet, lethal. No, I didn't want to stay here.

I let the curtain fall again, obscuring the nothingness that was waiting outside. I paced over to the bookshelf I'd been pulling books from, my eyes scanning over them without really seeing the letters imprinted in their leather spines. I needed a break. It had been days since I'd put any time into my vocal exercises, but I didn't feel comfortable leaving Ron's presence to be alone long enough to do it.

I frowned. I was starting to get cross.

"Daph!" Ron's excited voice broke me out of my desolate thoughts, and I turned and moved quickly over to where he was rising from his chair. The book he'd been reading was open on the table between the chairs, and he was pointing to the ancient pages, his eyes alight with his enthusiasm. "I think I've found it!"

His excitement was contagious, and I couldn't help but smile as I sank down into the seat he'd just vacated, still warm from his body heat. I peered down at the open pages, my eyes moving over a careful ink drawing of a square box that looked precisely like the one that was currently sitting on the mantle above the library's fireplace. "_Dream Box_," I read out loud from the slanted script just below the picture. I glanced up at Ron and he nodded, gesturing for me to read on.

I turned my attention back to the book. "_When invoked, the user is transported to the realm of dreams. When he leaves his home, he will enter at random his deepest nightmare or his fondest dream._" I looked up at Ron as I finished reading, my smile widening across my face. This certainly looked promising. "The spiders." At one point during my childhood, I'd become locked in a very spidery shed. He nodded again, and I focused again on the paper in front of me.

I read down the rest of the page, and over onto the next one, but the rest of the information was about the known history of the Dream Box, with nothing about how one got out of it. It ended cryptically with, "_The nightmare torments, but beware the dream._"

I looked up at Ron where he was leaning over the chair to look at the book over my head, considering. He'd told me about the teddy bear-spider incident with his brother, so it was possible that the spiders were his nightmare. "It only mentions one person, and you were the one with the wand. Assuming that means you invoked the Dream Box, does it also mean that we're only going to see your dream and nightmare?"

He moved around to the front of the chair, crouching down in front of me. His hand came out and gently covered mine, stilling it, making me realize I'd been tapping my fingers against the open pages of the book. "I'm not sure."

I stared down at his extremity, my eyes seeking out patterns in the freckles on his pale skin. My mind was moving. I didn't have a lot of personal experience with cursed objects. No doubt there was enough information in this library to work it out, but that might take a very long time indeed- years perhaps, even given the seemingly endless time we had here to study. First we would need to find all of the relevant information, weeding it out of the wealth of knowledge displayed about the room. And even then... Learning theory for magic is one thing, becoming proficient enough in it, particularly without a teacher, is another thing entirely. No doubt the process would be a difficult one, given that the text had mentioned that there was only one Dream Box in existence.

The easiest solution would be to speak with someone who already had all, or most, of the relevant knowledge. There were only the two of us here, though, and Ron seemed to be a competent Auror, but he didn't have any more idea of how to deal with this than I did. Of course, there was an entire profession dedicated solely to dealing with cursed objects.

I felt my fingers twitch under Ron's hand in my desire to fidget. He looked down at his hand as though he'd forgotten it was on top of mine, but he didn't move it away. I didn't ask him to, either.

I thought back over everything I could remember about what had happened since we'd been here, and my mind focused in on one thing. "You mentioned your oldest brother is a curse-breaker?"

"Yeah. Not that Bill does us much good here."

"What is your fondest dream?" I shook my head, lifting my eyes to his. That was an intensely personal question, one I certainly wasn't ready to answer myself, so I really didn't have any business asking it. "I mean, is there a chance that your brother would be in your fondest dream? Because if it did, we could simply go out and ask him."

His face had grown more animated and more excited as I'd spoken. "That's brilliant, Daph!" His eyes locked with mine, and the intensity in them made me catch my breath. Crouched down in front of me, he was close enough for me to lean forward and press my lips against his, and I couldn't think of a single reason why it would be a bad idea.

He seemed to feel the same pull, his gaze dropping from mine to focus on my mouth. I felt frozen in place, as though even closing the distance between us would somehow shatter the moment.

The last person I had felt this drawn to was Adrian, and that thought made me move my eyes from his face, turning back to look again at the book. The moment had passed.

I hadn't thought about Adrian so much in a very long time- perhaps it was just the circumstances. I wasn't used to having so much time spent quietly with ample opportunity to think.

"There's a chance we'll run into the spiders again, of course." I couldn't suppress my shudder at the thought. My skin was starting to crawl again just thinking about it, and it took a supreme amount of effort to keep from raising my free hand and pressing it down over my hair.

I felt the warm pressure of his hand leave mine as he stood, extending the same hand down to me. He was almost vibrating with his excitement, and I had to smile as I took his hand and let him pull me gently to my feet. As much as I had mixed feelings about leaving this place, there was no doubt that Ron was nothing but looking forward to it.

"At the first sign of a spider, I'll bring us back here," he vowed, taking my hand and tucking it firmly into his elbow. "We can take a moment and go right back out again." He steered us out of the library and down the hall, and I realised we were already heading directly outside.

I stopped walking, slipping my hand from his arm, and he stopped beside me. There was an unmistakable look of impatience on his face as he looked down at me. "Ron? I don't have shoes on." My desire not to go back outside was such that I hadn't bothered with shoes, or even socks, since our unpleasant excursion into the black mist.

He took a look down at my bare feet, then gave me a sheepishly apologetic look. "Sorry, Daph. I'm just..."

"I know. I want to get out of here just as much as you do." Except that was most certainly a lie. When we got out of here, I would go home and settle back into my life, and he would go to his home in-

"Where do you live now?" I asked as we started toward the stairs. I refused to run to keep up with his long strides, and in just a few steps, he realised he was rapidly outpacing me, and dropped back to keep by my side.

"I have a flat in London. They opened up those wizarding flats just opposite the Muggle entrance to Diagon Alley, I live there."

-London. Which sounded infinitely better than what I would have to face. Tori would have missed me, of course, and my parents would be at least concerned, but by the end of the day, Tori would have to go home to her new husband, and everyone would forget that I'd been gone. Ron would no doubt spend the evening with his family and friends, all of whom would be overjoyed to see him again.

"Daphne."

His voice broke me out of my melancholy, turning my attention from the stairs in front of me to glance at him for a moment before turning back to make sure I didn't miss a step. "Yes?"

"You can come with me. When we get out of here. I mean, if you want to. I mean, it's not... It'll be good. Mum'll want to cook, she'll insist I've been starving while I've been here. My brothers and Ginny will give me endless shit, I'm sure."

I smiled at the slightly nervous, babbled invitation. "Thank you, Ron, but I don't want to intrude. Your family may not take too kindly to my being there."

I felt him shrug as his arm bumped against mine. "Reckon it would be better than when Bill brought Fleur home. At least you're British." He paused as he glanced down at me. "And not part-Veela." I didn't answer him. I felt him looking at me again, a measured glance. "The first time you go against your parents' wishes is hard. Dad... Dad just wants us to be happy and supports whatever decisions we make. Mum's a bit more... She cries. She cried when Bill went to Egypt, she cried when Charlie went to Romania... None of us have done what she exactly what she wanted us to. But she still loves us, y'know?"

"That's the difference," I told him pleasantly, the bitterness kept back from my voice. "I'm not sure my mother does love me like that."

His arm came around my shoulders, and I leaned my head against him. Maybe it was a little naïve to believe that we could go to whatever his dream was and be home in time for tea, but his hope in the idea was contagious.

We crested the stairs, and our steps were slightly slower as we headed down the hall towards our room. At length, though, we reached our destination, and I slipped away from him to start hunting for my trainers. I'd brought them as an alternative to my heels, and I'd last worn them on our ill-advised journey into the black fog.

When I straightened from tying the laces tightly across the top of my feet, his hand came out and caught mine, and I held it gratefully. He went to move towards the open door to the hall, but I rooted myself where I was, and when he found I wasn't moving with him, he stopped and turned towards me, eyebrows raised in question.

"This may be the last time we really see each other in some time, and I just wanted to say... thank you." I looked up into his blue eyes, trying to convey all of the things I couldn't really say. I'd never really been very good at verbally expressing my emotions, it was something my sister and I were discouraged from as children.

His hand squeezed mine as if to reassure me. "You'll see me again, Daph. Count on it. I'll talk to George, and then I'll come and see you and help you move, yeah?"

He looked so positive, so sure of himself, that I couldn't help but smile a little. "Your optimism is very charming."

"I tried pessimism, I didn't like it so well." He looked down at me, and he looked almost shy. "Charming? No one's ever called me charming before and meant it. That doesn't really answer my question, though."

With him looking like that, it was tempting to try and distract him in a very physical way. But, given how excited he was about getting home, there was a chance it wouldn't work, and the rejection would sting. "I've kept you long enough, we should get going." I made to move past him, and this time it was he who acted as an anchor, his grip on my hand stopping me from progressing out the door.

He was completely serious when I turned back to see why he'd stopped me, a look of concern on his face. "You're miserable, Daph. I'd like to think that we're at least friends by this point, I can't let you go back home and be miserable again, not when I can do something about it."

I twisted my hand until I slipped it from his, drawing myself up and squaring my shoulders to face him. "I"m not miserable."

"Coulda fooled me." When my only response was to raise an eyebrow, he let out an exasperated sigh. "You're not happy, at the very least. Let me help. Try it. What's the worst that could happen?"

I had to look away at that question. I knew what would happen. I would go back home, defeated and dejected, and my mother would spend the next little while gloating and telling me she'd known this was going to happen, and by the way, she'd invited the Notts for tea, would I please entertain Theo.

I looked back at him. His words had been light for the most part, cajoling, but there was an edge to his voice that matched the hardness in his eyes. He really, _really_ wanted this for me. "Why is this so important to you?"

"Because you're miserable, despite what you say otherwise. And because I get the feeling that you don't let many things become important to you."

That was true enough that I had to look away again, my eyes closing so that there was no chance of him seeing the truth in them.

I felt his fingers brush against the side of my face. "What happened?"

Now was not the time for this conversation. "Nothing I didn't do." I opened my eyes and put on a pleasant smile, and I saw the reflection of a scowl in his eyes when I turned back to see him.

"Don't do that!" he snapped. "I'm not one of your fucking pure-blood idiots, ready to believe whatever empty smiles you put on your face." His words were hard, but his hand was still gentle against my face.

My smile dropped and I glared at him, and he grinned in response, actually grinned at me. "Better. I can talk to George tonight, and then come and help you get moved tomorrow. What do you say?

There was a hope, a confidence in Ron's voice that made me want to hope too. Maybe I could make it work this time. I was a little older now, maybe I could deal with it. "All right," I said at last, my temper vanishing as I turned back to face him, and the grin on his face was reward enough.

"Good! Now can I talk you into coming with me tonight?"

That was pushing it a little too much. I shook my head. Besides, I did want to see Tori again, and she would assuredly not be at whatever gathering Ron's family had. "No. Thank you for the invitation, though."

"All right. Where do you live?"

His eyes widened a little as I gave him the address, a low whistle coming out. "I didn't realize that was your house."

My parents' home was a rather extensive estate out near Falmouth. Apparently Ron knew exactly where it was, probably something to do with his job. "Yes. One of my ancestors helped found the Falmouth Falcons, and we've kept rather close to the area."

He offered me his arm and I took it, and as we walked back downstairs, my mood was a little lighter than it had been when we'd gone up to the room.

It wasn't night. It was about ten or so in the morning, but it was hard to think of it as daytime when it was so completely black everywhere we looked. Being outside with the black mist made me shudder, and I moved closer to Ron, clutching his arm with both hands the same way I had the last time we'd been out here.

He looked down at me, seeming faintly amused. "You can relax," he told me. "We're not going out into it again."

"I know." My words came out rather more terse than I intended. "I still don't like it."

The iron gate at the end of the long gravel drive rose up in front of us, a silent challenge against the darkness beyond. I wanted to turn and bury my face in Ron's shoulder, but he kept moving along, his steps buoyed by his excitement.

The gate opened, and then we were past it, just steps away from the suffocating darkness. We stopped, and I did move into him, tucking my head against him and putting one arm around his waist. His arms came around me in a familiar fashion, but instead of the sucking, spinning feeling of Apparition, we stood there. I felt him rest his cheek on the top of my head. "Daph," he said, his voice thick.

I closed my eyes. I couldn't hear him say whatever he was going to say. "Just get us out of here."

I felt the unpleasant sensation of side-along Apparition then, as he took us away from there.

**A/N: Thank you all for the reviews! :D **


	7. Chapter 7

We arrived. It took a moment or two before I was ready to lift my head and look around, unwilling for this all to end just yet. It was pleasant there, being held close against him. I knew it had to end, though, and I took my face out of the front of his smooth black shirt, taking in as much of the room as I could without moving away. I wasn't quite ready to let go, yet, especially since I didn't know what to expect.

We were in the front room of, well, it sure didn't look like a flat in London. Nor did it look like what I would expect Ron's family home to look like, going from his descriptions. It was an elegant, if somewhat understated room, white and periwinkle with accents of gold. One wall was dominated by a large bay window, the periwinkle-and-gold curtains drawn back to reveal a wide expanse of brilliantly green lawn.

I shifted back enough to look up into Ron's face. There was recognition there, to be sure, but he looked a little bemused, as though he was surprised to be here.

"What is this place?" I asked, keeping my voice down. I had no idea what was going on, and I didn't want to attract any undue attention.

"This looks..." I could see his ears begin to go pink as he turned his head to look around. "I've been looking at houses, y'know, somewhere more permanent to live, and this looks... This looks a lot like one of the houses."

It was unspeakably private to be able to see into his dreams. This was obviously the house he actually wanted some day. I felt I had to say something, that I couldn't just brush off being here. "It's a lovely house." Judging by the size and appointment of the front room, the house was something that would be rather more than an Auror's salary would afford. There'd been talk about how the Malfoys had paid out restitution after the war, and I seemed to remember hearing Ron's name on the list of recipients, but something told me this was beyond even that.

It was a shame, really; I could easily see myself at home here. I took another glance up at Ron and banished that thought. This was Ron's dream, and it wouldn't do for me to insinuate myself into it.

I pulled gently out of his arms, moving over to the bright window as if pulled by a magnet. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed sunlight until just this moment. It was warm on my face, a reassuring, comforting warmth. I could be perfectly happy here, and this wasn't even my dream.

I rested a hand against the gleaming white window casing and stared out over a green lawn that was covered in the kind of grass that made you want to take off your shoes and walk around. This was beautiful, just absolutely magnificent. I stared and stared, caught up in the glorious colours.

I turned back around to tell Ron that his dream was really quite something, but I was stopped short when I found him attached by the lips to someone. He was bent down, one hand flat on the small of her back, her arms twined around his neck. I stared, blinking in silence until the two finally broke apart. I wanted to levitate her across the room and out onto the soft-looking grass. By her ankle. I didn't, instead lifting an eyebrow and staring at them, my face carefully blank.

He looked distinctly guilty when he noticed that I'd been watching them. "Sorry, I... She just came in and kissed me."

It was his dream. Just because he wasn't currently seeing anyone, didn't meant he didn't want to, and who was I to have any opinion on what his dream was? The fact that I knew they were irrational did nothing to quell my feelings. My mouth moved automatically into a polite smile while I seethed. I said nothing, just the blank, pleasant smile. He didn't like that smile, his eyebrows lowered as though he was about to scowl at me.

She turned around then, and the first thing I noticed about her was that there was something odd about her features- her face fit together well enough, but the configuration of her features seemed to shift depending on the angle one looked at her from. She was undeniably pretty, and the welcoming smile she gave me seemed warm and genuine. I didn't despise her any less.

"Hi there," she greeted me in a friendly manner, as though we'd known each other for years despite having just arrived. Her eyes turned back to the tall redhead, an obvious expression of tenderness on her face. "I'll go and let everyone know you're back, I know they've been worried about you."

Before he had a chance to reply, she breezed out of the room, grace in motion.

Ron was very pointedly not looking at me. His eyes moved around the room, seeming to alight on everything except my person. They stopped on the window just as my own gaze had done, and I could see the slight shift as a touch of relief entered his expression.

"She seemed nice," I commented finally, my voice carefully polite. It was the same voice I used when I spoke to Theo- pleasant but distancing.

He didn't appear to like it, judging from the scowl on his face. Well, it was no less than he deserved. I was glad I'd turned away before things had gotten to that point between us not too long ago. I would have felt decidedly worse if I'd kissed him, only to find him embracing someone else just minutes later.

"I don't even know who she is!" he protested after a moment of weighted silence.

"Yes, when one is kissed by a complete stranger, it's perfectly natural to stand there and snog them for quite some time." I shook my head, turning back towards the window. "You don't owe me any explanation- we are, as you said, friends." That wasn't exactly what he'd said, but it was close enough to suit.

Rationality intruded into my thoughts in the most insistent way. The truth of the matter was, if this was my dream and Adrian was there, I wasn't sure that I would be able to keep from doing the same thing, no matter how much I was attracted to the tall redhead whose eyes were heavy enough on the back of my head that I could feel it. Emotions don't listen to logic, however, and it was much, much easier to cling to my anger.

I wanted to leave. I wanted no more part of Ron's dreams. His dreams didn't include me. On the one hand, that was good. We'd only really started to get to know each other over the past few days, and for me to be represented here at all would be unhealthy. On the other hand, I was very pointedly excluded.

The sense of exclusion only grew when the front room was suddenly flooded with people. Some I recognised, some I didn't. They surrounded him, hugging him, welcoming him home. They were genuinely happy to see him, glad that he was there. This wasn't just a shadow, the shade of a dream; this felt real. I could feel it, and they weren't even there for me.

I knew that Fred Weasley had died in the war, killed in the final battle at Hogwarts while I was in the dungeons with the rest of my House. But he wasn't dead here, he was standing beside George Weasley, the mirror image of his twin. And George was whole here, both ears firmly attached to either side of his head. And then I lost them as they melted into the warm press of bodies.

Ron was the tallest, it was easy to keep sight of his longish red hair above everyone else's, but I purposely looked away again, willing myself to lose track of him. This was his dream. I was the only part that didn't belong.

The mass of bodies shifted and moved about until I was pushed out to the very edge of the room, and I sank down to sit on a nearby periwinkle settee. It was soft and comfortable, the absolute definition of perfection. Of course it was. Everything would be perfect here.

The mass of bodies parted, the carpet at the top of my field of vision exposed as feet moved aside, and I quite suddenly found a single pair of familiarly-booted feet just a short distance from the bottom of the settee. A look up confirmed it was Ron looking down at me, a broad grin covering his face, the sparkle of happy tears in his eyes a testament to the power this place had. "There you are," he said, a touch out-of-breath, as though he'd been laughing too hard before trying to talk. "I asked Bill if he knew anything about the Dream Box, he's just nipped off to see if he could find anything about it."

My eyebrow rose. I was somewhat surprised that he'd been able to keep his focus amidst all of this. I wasn't sure that I would have been able to. "Thank you," I murmured. "I do hope he comes back soon."

"Yeah." He looked down at me for a moment, hands deep in the pockets of his trousers. "Mum said something about tea, if you want to come and have something to eat." He extracted a hand from his pocket and offered it to me, the gesture so familiar, that I automatically took it and let him help me to my feet. Immediately upon standing, though, the witch who had greeted him was at his side, taking his other hand and twining her fingers in his, her free hand wrapping about his elbow. Just for a moment, there was something about her that reminded me a lot of Lavender Brown- hadn't they dated when we were in school? It seemed like I had seen this exact moment played out, though the background details were different.

I freed myself from his grip and offered another polite smile, turning and finding the woman who could only be the Weasley matriarch. She was short and round, she looked... comfortable, for lack of any better words. She practically radiated warmth and tenderness. "Tea would be lovely, Mrs Weasley, thank you."

She beamed at me before starting to... herd was the only way to really explain it. She started to herd us all out of the room, and into a wide hall, across to a beautifully appointed dining room.

There was a long dark table, with plenty of room for even the large number of people that were crowding around it. Ron found me again as everyone started seating themselves, catching my hand and keeping me close to him. To my surprise, the witch he'd been kissing seemed happy enough to let him do so, releasing him without a second glance- that was very strange.

I pulled my hand away immediately, but I was seated beside Ron. That was somewhat reassuring, to say the least. As displeased as I was with him, it was easier to sit to his left than to be trapped between two people I didn't know.

It was easier to pick out individual faces now that they were all separated out in their own chairs. I wasn't at all surprised to see Harry Potter and Hermione Granger at the table, but they weren't the only ones present who weren't a part of the red-haired Weasley family. And there were children at the table, obviously spouses and children belonging to various family members.

The sheer amount of noise was shocking. Everyone seemed to be speaking at once, carrying on two or three simultaneous conversations. There was a lot of laughter around the table, and no small amount of shouting as voices were raised to be heard above the din. It was a madhouse.

Ron loved it, though, judging by the broad grin on his face. He took my hand again, resting it easily on his knee under the table. I was a little unsure of how to take that. It was possible that he just didn't want to lose me when we were somewhere unknown and unfamiliar, or that he wanted to be ready to go as soon as his brother came back. When I happened to glance past him and saw the witch who'd kissed him on his other side, I pulled my hand away, snatching it back.

He looked down at me and didn't see anything, but I could see a touch of hurt in his eyes. _He_ was hurt?

His girlfriend was spoken of a few times, but always as, "Ron's girlfriend," or, "your girlfriend." She didn't have a name, it seemed, and the pieces started fitting together in my head. She wasn't a specific person. Ron's fondest dreams included the presence of a witch who loved him, but there wasn't a specific witch he wanted to fill that position. That seemed to help the jealous ache a little.

Looking around the table, I was struck again by how personal, how intimate it was just to be here. This was what Ron wanted most of all. Given how he struggled with insecurity, I doubted he shared it often with anyone.

I also couldn't help but be relieved that this wasn't my dream. I honestly wasn't sure if I'd be able to handle that. I didn't share my dreams with anyone anymore, not even Tori.

There were delicious biscuits and meat pies that everyone praised Mrs Weasley for, and I had to wonder if her food tasted this good in real life. Ron had praised her cooking rather extensively, but memories of the people you love tend to be a bit subjective.

Every so often, I'd catch Ron staring at Fred with a wistful sort of smile on his face. I knew he missed his brother terribly, I had to imagine how grateful I'd have been if I'd seen a beloved family member who I thought was gone forever.

At one point he turned to me, ducking his head towards mine. "It would be so easy to get lost here," he admitted in a low voice, his words hidden from the others by the general noise. "Stay here among friends and family. If I didn't know better, I might."

I had to nod. Before I could answer, though, there seemed to be a general consensus that tea was finished, and it was time to go outside and play Quidditch.

"Just give me a minute, all right?" he asked once we'd trooped outside, and he caught my hand and led me away from everyone else.

I looked up at him, my eyebrow raised, waiting for him to say whatever it was he wanted to say. "I'm... I'm sorry, all right? I don't even know who that witch is." He was unspeakably earnest as he looked down at me, blue eyes filled with sincere apology.

"She doesn't exist. She's not a definite person, her features shift. I'd say that you want a witch who loves you, you just haven't settled on a particular one."

His face flooded with relief. "Yeah, that's it. There isn't anyone in my life." His fingers squeezed over mine. "You're real, Daph, she's not."

He looked so hopeful that my carefully blank facade cracked with a small smile. "I don't want to see any more... of that."

"Of course not!" The lingering warmth from his lips as they brushed over my own cheek seemed to tingle for minutes after he'd already moved away to go and find his broom for Quidditch. I was still upset about what had happened, but it was impossible not to soften, at least a little.

The front garden was enclosed by a dense wood, but it was vast enough for three-a-side Quidditch. It was Ron, Harry, one of the other old Gryffindor House-members- a witch who'd been on their Quidditch team, Ginny, and the twins. I ended up sitting on the grass, one eye on the match and one eye on Hermione Granger. I couldn't help but wonder if the real Hermione Granger was as into Charlie Weasley as this version seemed to be, or if it was Ron's dream that she end up as a part of the family. I couldn't ask, though, given how I would feel if someone did the same to me.

I was sitting on the lawn by the door, Charlie and Hermione were over by the treeline far to my right, and there was no sign of Ron's girlfriend anywhere. Maybe she had stayed in the house. I was completely all right with that. I would be perfectly happy to never see her again, real or not.

The Quidditch match seemed to last until dark. I had to wonder how anyone could see what was going on up there, my own vision had become restricted to dark shapes moving across the dark sky. Ron's family seemed even more competitive than a lot of the matches I'd seen at school. Ron came over to me, out of breath and sweaty, and held out his hand. I let him help me up, and he retained my hand. I let him, despite how warm and damp it was. My time in school had left me familiar with the post-Quidditch state.

"Bill back yet?" he asked, standing close enough to me that my neat blouse brushed against the front of his black shirt. The lawn was lit beautifully by the yellow light shining out from the house's many windows, but it was still too dim to make out the blue in his hopeful gaze.

I shook my head. "I haven't seen him. Maybe he's still inside?" The whole family hadn't come out. The blond French witch who could only be Fleur and her children hadn't come outside, neither had Percy and... Audrey, I think Ron mentioned her name as. Neither of his parents had come outside, either.

Ron tucked my hand into his elbow and headed into the house. A quick look showed that Bill wasn't among those assembled in the sitting room. "Has Bill come back?" Ron asked.

No one had seen him, and no one seemed concerned about his continued absence. Ron was looking thoughtful, then I saw that light in his eyes, the one that meant he'd come up with a new idea.

He turned to me, his other hand coming to rest on my waist. "Reckon we'll just go find him, then."

"No, Ron, wait-" But it was too late.

**A/N: Oh, real life. Why do you interfere in my writing so much? But... An update! And thank you all for the reviews, they are for sure appreciated.**


	8. Chapter 8

It smelled like the ocean. It was a smell I was very familiar with, that salty wet smell, the air filled with moisture. The sound, too, as the piercing call of seagulls reached my ears. I looked away from Ron and found that we were on a clifftop, the expanse of the Atlantic spread out in the distance, gray from the clouds above. I took a deep breath, pulling the familiar smell into my lungs. I'd spent as much time as I could in my childhood outside, and this smell felt like home to me more than anything else.

"There's a good chance we're not in your dream anymore," I told him.

"I know. I didn't think about it until we were already here." A glance up showed he looked a little sheepish, refusing to meet my eyes. "Keep an eye out for spiders, yeah?"

I shuddered, my fingers squeezing into Ron's arm. "Right." I took another look around at the sand-and-grass that surrounded us, my eyes scanning for any wriggling black shape. I could almost feel them in my hair again crawling along my scalp.

I turned my full attention back to the wizard in front of me, one eyebrow raised. "We're in Cornwall," I observed. We weren't exactly near where I'd grown up, there were no familiar landmarks or anything, but there's nowhere else quite like Cornwall.

He nodded. "Yeah. This is where Bill and Fleur live."

I gestured out to the ocean. "It wasn't light out at all when we left your... house." I didn't want to refer to the house itself as his dream, that seemed a little too personal.

He nodded again, eyes lifted over my head as he looked around. He seemed to be focused on something specific, a look of hesitation on his face.

I gently disengaged from him, slipping my hand from his elbow and pulling out of what had been not quite an embrace. I turned to look in the direction he was facing, and saw a little cottage that seemed so natural here that it was as though it was a part of the clifftops. In addition to the gulls, the sound of young children from within carried over the waves far below. "No... spiders," I observed. At least not yet. The last time around, it had taken a few minutes before they started showing up.

He shook his head. "Reckon we should go in." He sounded unsure, the confidence that had brought us here so swiftly was shaken. "See if Bill's found anything yet."

I took his arm again, and we walked across the grass to the house. The front garden was fairly narrow, bordered by a plain wooden fence. He opened the gate for me and ushered me along the stone path until we reached the solid front door, bleached by years of sea air and sun.

He glanced down at me for a moment before lifting his hand and rapping sharply at the door.

"Do you normally knock at your family's house?" I asked quietly, somewhat amused. "I thought you were closer than that."

I could feel the look he gave me before answering. "Well, no, but I don't know what we're going to find here."

The silence stretched out between us. At length I frowned, staring at the door as though I could see through it. "I can hear them inside." This close to the house revealed not only the sounds of young children, but the lower tones of adults. Fleur's melodic voice was unmistakable, though I couldn't make out anything she was saying.

I lifted my hand and knocked, and this time the door was opened quite promptly. I hadn't had much of a look at Bill while we'd been at Ron's house, but this was unmistakably him. He was just a touch shorter than his youngest brother, long red hair in a ponytail at his neck, an earring dangling from one year. "Yes?" he asked politely after looking at me for a moment, no sign of recognition in his eyes. This was definitely more reassuring than the spiders.

I hadn't actually been introduced to him earlier, he could have quite easily missed me in the crowd. I couldn't help but notice that he hadn't looked at Ron at all, and he seemed to be addressing just me. I looked up at the wizard beside me, and saw that he was similarly bemused. "Hi, Bill. Sorry to just drop by, but we were just wondering if you'd found out anything about the Dream Box."

It was like he hadn't even spoken. None of Bill's attention was taken from me, and there was a growing air of expectancy like he was still waiting for an answer. "We're here about the cursed object," I told him, hoping to jog his memory.

He looked around me, eyes drawing slightly together. "We? You expecting someone else?" He leaned forward a little to peer out of the door in both directions, as though Ron wasn't even there. "Oh, you must be from the Ministry, they're always trying to skip the proper channels. Tell them they can go through the bank, just like every other time."

Before I had a chance to answer, Fleur appeared at his side, resting a tender hand along his shoulder. She, too, didn't even glance in Ron's direction. "What is it?" she asked, seeming a little impatient. There was no recognition in her face when she looked at me, despite having met me earlier that day. This was very obviously not the same witch I'd met.

I looked up at Ron, and there was a very strange look on his face. "I'm a friend of your brother's," I told them.

"George's new witch?" Bill's eyes moved over me before he broke into an easy grin. "You're a bit more prim than I'd peg for George, aren't you?"

My eyebrow rose sharply, and I took another glance up at Ron. "Your youngest brother."

"George is my youngest brother, or so Fred keeps reminding us." Bill looked confused now. A noise from within the house pulled Fleur's attention away, and after a glance into the depths beyond, she excused herself and went to investigate.

The long-haired wizard in front of us seemed to think for a moment. "You mean... Not... Oh, what was his name? Reginald? Merlin, I haven't thought of him in... Is he still alive?" The question was polite and curious, but not at all really interested. "What's this about a cursed object?" That was what was pulling his attention, any reference to Ron dismissed out of hand.

Ron whirled and was striding away before I could even begin to formulate a response, and again, Bill seemed not to notice. "It's nothing. I'm sorry to have bothered you. Excuse me." I turned and had to run to catch up to Ron's long strides as he moved quickly away from the house. I heard the door shut behind me.

Ron stopped walking, facing away from me, and was utterly still. His shoulders were sloped down, his head was bowed. He was the absolute picture of brokenheartedness, and I went to him and rested my hand on his back. Slowly I slipped my arms around him, one hand sliding over his waist and around his stomach, and then the other one. I stepped closer, close enough that I was pressed against him, and turned my head to rest my cheek against the solidness of his back.

He was shaking, still silent. What had happened earlier didn't matter anymore. This. This was Ron's nightmare, and even the brief exchange had disturbed him very deeply. I couldn't stop it, it had already happened, but I could comfort him. It was completely ridiculous, given how he'd spoken about his family there was no way that this was even a possibility. But then, nightmares typically are ridiculous, as soon as they're exposed to the light of day. In the moment, though, they're utterly terrifying.

At length he turned towards me, his arms closing around my waist as he held me close against him, his cheek against the top of my head. "I'm sorry," I offered quietly, my arms tight about him, and I felt his head shift as he nodded.

Even with my the majority of my attention going to comforting Ron, it was impossible to ignore the ramifications of what had just happened. The book had specifically said that the user would see his deepest nightmare or his fondest dream. Two options. Which either meant that Ron's deepest nightmare had drastically changed over a matter of days, or the spiders hadn't been his nightmare. Which meant that we would likely also see my dream.

I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the possibility away as though that had a chance of working. I wasn't ready to see that, and I certainly wasn't ready for Ron to see that. My arms tightened around him. "We should leave." We could go back to Malfoy Manor, get something to eat, and figure out what we would need to do going forward.

He nodded again, but he made no move to let me go, and I was content to stay there with him like that. He'd stopped shaking, but he still clung to me as though he needed me.

The salt air no longer seemed as comforting as it just had. The gulls seemed mocking now, their piercing cries unfriendly and unwelcoming. "We should go," I whispered again, and this time I felt him lift his head. His arms tightened around me for a moment, and then we were gone.

It wasn't the chill, sinister darkness of the grounds of Malfoy Manor. It was dark, darker than it had been at least, but the air was pleasant and... Still smelled of the ocean.

I opened my eyes and it was dark enough that the rough rock wall just a metre away barely visible, but there was an opening, a source of bright light coming from just down the way. A cave, we were in a cave. The ground under my feet was rock, I could feel the slightly jagged surface pressing up against the soles of my trainers. I knew exactly where we were.

"No," I whispered, pulling away from Ron. I ran towards the entrance, a run I'd made too many times to count. "No, no!"

It was just the way I remembered it. I'd been here just the day before Tori's wedding, an escape from the intense emotions that had been flying around my home. It was beautiful here, although even more than I remembered. The summer sun shone warmly overhead, sparkling across the surface of the ocean. The water lapped quietly at the shore, ebbing and flowing with the gentle whisper that fairly invited me to wade in. Rocky cliffs towered over me on three sides, rising up sharply where they'd yet to be carved out by the efforts of the wind and water.

And a look to my left showed Tori, who took a moment to wave to me before continuing to pick her way down the narrow path that led down the face of one of the cliffs.

I was aware that Ron was beside me again, he made a soft noise of wonder as he took in the vista before us. It was beautiful. I just couldn't be here any longer. I grabbed his hand and willed us back to the darkness in front of the Malfoy's estate just as hard as I could.

He seemed surprised to be there, but I didn't care. I touched my wand to the cold iron gates, opening them, and sprinted up the path to the Malfoy's house. The lights that we'd left on were still on, a yellow glow beckoning me out of the darkness.

I could hear him moving after me, footsteps crunching on the gravel as he loped easily up the drive behind me, but I didn't stop. "Daph! Daphne!"

I kept going until I reached the house, leaving the front door open in my haste. I went directly to the kitchen, pausing only to toe off my trainers, a sign that I was staying _here_. The bottle of Firewhisky was still where we'd left it, and I opened it and started taking it directly from the bottle. I drank until I needed to break for air, my breath coming in short gasps from my sprint up the drive. I'd certainly done myself no favours, my head was starting to spin, and I gripped the edge of the counter for balance.

Ron was there in the doorway. I didn't look up at him, but I could hear the concern in his voice. "You all right?"

I nodded, taking another long swig from the bottle, my eyes hard on the counter in front of me.

"That was your sister, wasn't it? Was she going to fall off the cliff or something?" He sounded like he genuinely cared. As far as I knew they hadn't actually met, but there was a good chance he'd seen her all done up in her wedding finery. And we did look quite similar.

"No." I put the bottle down on the island counter just a little too hard, the amber liquid cascading around the inside like it was trying to escape. I looked up at Ron, saw the worry in his blue eyes. "No, that was my dream."

He seemed stunned at what I'd said. "What..."

I took a deep breath and drew myself up to my full height, looking squarely into his face as though I was challenging him. "That's where I go to sing."

"Sing?" He seemed genuinely confused.

I lifted my chin a notch higher. "Yes. The acoustics in that cave are perfect. Not where we were, a little further on. It opens up into a large chamber, no one ever goes there..."

He shook his head, bewilderment in his eyes. "Didn't you want to see it? I liked being in that house- friends and family..."

"No." The word came out quite a bit sharper than I'd intended. I picked up the bottle and had another drink, taking solace as it burned a fresh path down the back of my throat.

"So then the spiders were your nightmare." He was watching me, undaunted by my hostile challenge, and I could see the thoughts moving through his mind. "Why do you get spiders, when I get my entire family forgetting about me? What about marrying Malfoy or Nott?"

I set the bottle down on the counter again and lifted myself up beside it, settling in to sit. "I told you I was seeing Adrian." At his nod, I closed my face into the blank neutrality I used to mask unpleasant things. It took some doing, the Firewhisky helped. "We were fairly serious. He asked me to marry him, and I broke his heart." I paused, looking down at the bit of sand that had clung to the dark trousers on my knee. "Broke both our hearts."

Ron crossed the kitchen to where I was, stopping beside me and leaning his hip on against the counter so I was faced with his profile. "Why?" His tone was concerned, curious. He wasn't chiding me for shutting myself down, I certainly appreciated it.

I offered him a shrug. "Mum. Adrian wasn't a suitable wizard, and she'd... I wasn't prepared to give everything up for him." I shook my head, feeling a fresh wash of pain, of shame, as I remembered the look on his face when I'd told him that I couldn't keep seeing him. "Marrying Theo or Mr Malfoy isn't a fear. It's an inevitability." I looked up at Ron again, and I could see the sympathy visible on even just half of his face.

"Why wasn't Pucey suitable?"

The recitation was as familiar to me as my own name. "Avery, Black, Bulstrode, Burke, Carrow, Crouch, Fawley, Flint, Greengrass, Lestrange, Longbottom, Macmillan, Malfoy, Nott, Parkinson, Rowle, Selwyn, Shacklebolt, Slughorn, Travers, Weasley, Yaxley, Zabini." Zabini was a recent addition, after my mother had verified the purity of the Italian family line.

He stayed silent while I ran through the list of families, then, "You forgot Prewett."

"There are no Prewetts left, not to carry on the family name. Your mum's a Weasley now, isn't she?" I made the question gentle. From what he'd told me, he was very young when his uncles had died, but death has a way of staying with you, coming up freshly at the most inopportune times. What he'd just seen might have left him vulnerable enough for it to matter.

He nodded, then I could see the thoughtful scowl come across his face. "So why wasn't Pucey there at the beach? I mean, I had the witch with no name..."

I gave him a humorless smile and picked up the bottle, raising it in silent salute. "I gave up on that dream a long time ago, Ron."

His fingers closed over mine and he gently took the Firewhisky from me, placing it quietly down on the counter. He was facing me now, close enough that my knee was brushing against his hip. His eyes moved over my face as though he was searching for something, and then he was moving forward, pressing himself into me until I parted my knees so he could stand between them. His hands came up to grip the counter to either side of me. I could see the haunted look still in his eyes, the remnant of his pain at living his nightmare.

I leaned forward and touched my lips to his. He needed comfort and I needed... I needed something.

His mouth moved tentatively against mine, as though he wasn't sure he should be doing this. I reached up with one hand and closed my fingers over the collar of his black shirt, keeping him in place. The gesture was mostly symbolic, he could have easily pulled away if he wanted to, but I wanted him there. He seemed content to be there as well, his own hand coming up, catching at the back of my waist. The kiss became more confident, more urgent, his tongue moving tantalizingly against mine.

Before too long, the hand that had ahold of his collar drifted down to meet the other one at his top button. It didn't take too long to get the shirt open. I slid my hands inside along his skin, up and over his shoulders, pushing the sleeves of the shirt down until it fell away to the floor.

The skin on his back was smooth under my fingertips, the dusting of hair between his shoulders contrasting sharply in its coarseness as I put my arms around him again, exploring the planes of his back and shoulders. I hadn't felt the hot rise of desire like this in... Too long. But now, I wanted- I _needed_- Ron.

He broke away to remove my own blouse, fumbling a little in his impatience with my buttons. He got it open, though, and I twisted my arms up behind myself to manage my own bra, undoing it and letting it slip down to the floor.

His eyes widened a little as though he hadn't quite thought to this point yet. He looked down at me, eyes fixed on my bare breasts for a moment, and then I was crushed against him again, his lips hard against mine.

The kiss didn't last long, though. He straightened away from me, pulling me forward until I slid completely off the counter and landed on the floor. My wide-legged trousers and knickers quickly met the same fate my bra had, discarded unheeded somewhere on the kitchen floor.

His fingers were long and sure, playing over my body until my pleasure crested and broke, leaving me clinging to his shoulders, my lower lip caught between my teeth.

He used his wand briefly at the floor before his own black trousers were gone, and he was lowering me to a surface that was softer than the marble kitchen floor was likely supposed to be. Hands explored, tongues tasted, and then I was on top of him with my head back and my hand on the side of the counter for balance as we moved together. What started slowly, almost tenderly, soon became urgent, harried, and his fingers moving between us brought me release again just a breath of time before he found his.

The kitchen was filled with our gasps of air as we both tried to catch our breath. The pain in his eyes was gone, replaced by a look of sleepy contentment. I had to smile.

He reached up for me, pulling me down beside him, groping on the floor beside my head for his wand. A quick movement and we were covered by a conjured blanket, thick and just a little scratchy, but I didn't mind. He was curled around my back like he had been just the night before, his arm about me holding me close. My head was pillowed on his other arm, and every so often I felt his lips move through my hair to touch the skin at the back of my neck.

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! :D Let me just say that this wasn't at all where I intended this chapter to go, but it... did.**


	9. Chapter 9

We slept there that night, curled up together on the softer piece he'd made out of the marble floor, under his conjured blanket. At some point I conjured pillows for us, it seemed far too much effort to untangle ourselves from each other and go all the way upstairs to the bed.

When morning came we shared a shower, causing me to smirk a little when I remembered what he'd said about not sharing a shower with me what seemed like forever ago. We spent more time there than was strictly necessary, the excuse of helping each other wash a convenient way to explore each other in greater detail. Ron was very ticklish, I soon discovered.

We didn't really speak until after breakfast- not about anything consequential, at least. We were sitting on the counter close together enough that our arms brushed every time either one of us moved, and finishing our coffee.

"You sing?" Ron asked, glancing up at me from where he'd been staring into the rapidly cooling remains of his coffee. Our plates and cutlery had been levitated through the air to the sink, where they were currently cleaning themselves. Teaching me that had been another excuse for Ron to touch me, his hand tucked over mine, my back pressed against the length of his torso as he showed me the proper wand movement.

I sighed. "Yes." The answer came out clipped in an effort to stop that line of conversation, and I stared at my own mug with great intensity.

"You any good?"

At that I looked up at him, eyes narrowed in a warning glare that seemed not to phase him at all.

"Don't look at me like that," he replied mildly, though I could see a bit of colour at the tips of his ears. "Yesterday we talked about how you don't let anything become important to you, so for you to be there... It's got to matter. Any maybe if it matters that much, it's because you're good at it."

I dropped my eyes to the swirling, tepid brown liquid in front of me. I didn't want to be speaking about this, but... I'd seen his dream. I knew exactly what he wanted. It seemed only fair for me to talk about mine. I gave my coffee a thoughtful look. "I think it's more that, that place represents the freedom to be myself, to do the things I want to do." I'd had some time to consider it, last night while I was falling asleep, this morning while I was helping with breakfast and eating. Singing was important to me, it was the one thing I really had that I enjoyed doing, but it wasn't something I necessarily wanted to base my life around.

Ron's large hand came directly into my field of vision, his fingers closing over the top of my coffee cup. He took it from me and put it somewhere else, then his arms slipped around my waist, urging me back until I was resting up against his side. "You don't honestly think I'm going to let you go off and marry some rich twat who's not going to appreciate you, do you?" I'd sort of surmised that Ron didn't really subscribe to casual relationships, and there was a... Not quite possessiveness, more of a confidence in his voice that confirmed my suspicion.

I closed my eyes, leaning my head back against his shoulder. It wasn't comfortable, not really- my head was too far back at an odd angle- but I didn't want to move. "What about Hermione?" The chance that the media wouldn't create a sensation out of whatever Ron and I had together was rather slim.

"We'll sort it out." He sounded decidedly unconcerned. "If all else fails, Hermione can just put Skeeter in a jar again."

My eyes opened, one eyebrow lifting; I hadn't heard that particular story. I raised my head and turned to look at him, but instead of an explanation, I got a kiss. Ron was very affectionate, due in part, I rather suspected, to confronting his nightmare yesterday. "I don't do public affection," I told him when he released my lips.

He made a big show of looking around the room. "I'm pretty sure we're the only ones here, Daph."

I gave him a very pointed look. "I mean for when we get back. I seem to remember you with Brown plastered all over you in school, and that won't be me."

A big grin turned up his face, and he gave me another quick kiss. "I'll remember that. I'm a bit glad, I always felt a little like she was going to smother me in front of everyone."

"Speaking of getting back," I began, and I felt his arms tighten around me. He was apprehensive about it, much like I had been just the morning before. I couldn't blame him, really. I certainly wasn't relishing the idea of being covered in spiders again. The more time we went without seeing them, the more likely it was that we would see them again. "The way I see it, we have two options. Both of them involve you."

He nodded like he knew what I was about to say. He urged me back against him again, and I let him. I suspected it was an effort not to go anywhere, like my habit of not wearing socks and shoes. "What are they?" There was a caution in his voice, like he was preparing himself for what I was going to say.

"We find your dream and just wait for Bill to come back."

"Or..."

"Or we find your nightmare and I ask Bill what we can do."

I felt him shifting behind me, his lips seeking the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck. "That's not an option for me. I can't do that again, definitely not for long enough for Bill to figure out what the fuck we need to do."

I nodded, careful not to jar him. "So we leave, and just keep moving around until we find your dream again. If we get the spiders, though..." I couldn't stop the shudder that moved up my spine. "I'm going to have to come back here and shower again."

"I can help you with that," he said, his lips brushing against the skin of my shoulder where it was exposed by my collar. "What is it with the spiders, anyway?"

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "When I was a little girl, I would follow the house-elves around. Tori wasn't big enough to play with, yet, and I couldn't get anywhere on my own. Mum thought I was pestering them, distracting them."

"Were you?" He'd straightened again, and I was grateful. I didn't want to associate this particular memory with the feel of his lips against my neck.

"Perhaps. More-than-likely. House-elves love children, though, and they seemed to encourage it. There was a shed on the land that bordered ours. Since it wasn't part of their home, the house-elves never cleaned it. But she had one of them lead me in there, and then shut me in to teach me a lesson. It was..." My voice caught, my hands moving to clutch Ron's arms, fingers digging in as I held him to me. I needed the reassurance of being able to touch him. "It was dark, and I could just feel them dropping onto me and crawling on me." I could almost feel them now, even talking about it. I had a very strong urge to bolt from the counter and run up to the bathroom for another shower that very second. "I received my fair share of bites, too. Nothing venomous, thankfully."

"Merlin's balls! How old were you?"

"Three or four." I felt him rest his forehead gently against the back of my own head. "I think it was as much to punish them as it was to punish me; I could hear Panry outside apologising to me the entire time I was in there."

"That's really..." He sounded utterly horrified.

I nodded, careful not to jostle his head. "I'm fairly certain my mother didn't realise the extent of what would happen, I think she just thought I'd be in there for a couple of hours in the dark, and come out not wanting to disturb the house-elves anymore. I got ice cream for dinner that night and a whole host of new toys I wanted." My skin was crawling, and I laced my fingers between Ron's, pulling his arms a little more securely around myself.

"The day after we get out of here, I'm coming to your house to get you, so you'd better be all packed up." There was a fierce determination in his voice that made me smile.

"All right."

We stayed there for a while, but eventually I gently pulled out of his arms, moving forward until I slid from the counter and landed easily on the floor. I turned and looked back at Ron. "We should go."

He swallowed and nodded. He came off the counter as well, alighting just in front of me. Before I could turn and begin the search for where I'd kicked off my trainers the night before, he slipped his arm behind my waist, hand spread wide across the small of my back. He pulled me against him, his other hand coming up to trail the backs of his fingers over my cheek for just a moment before his mouth was on mine again. This wasn't gentle like the kisses we'd just shared on the counter, this was as passionate as anything we'd shared the night before, or that morning while we'd lingered in the shower.

I stepped as close as I could, my hands sliding up his chest to clasp behind his neck. His tongue danced with mine, tempting me to not want to go anywhere.

At last he pulled away, and I clung to him for balance as I opened my eyes. "What was that?" I asked, slightly bemused.

"You don't do public affection, and we're going to be around my family for a while. I wanted something to keep in mind while I play Quidditch." There was a rather cheeky look in his eyes.

I smiled, shaking my head a little. I pulled away again, and this time he let me go and find my shoes. They were still in the kitchen, over by the door. After I put them on and tied them tightly, we walked together to the front door, hand-in-hand.

"If you kiss that witch again, I'm going to hex you," I told him. My tone was mild, but I was completely serious.

"You don't need to worry about that, I promise." He still sounded a little sheepish about it. "Should we grab the box before we go?" He glanced in the direction of the library.

"I don't think so. It would be one more thing to keep track of, and I'm worried that if we forgot it somewhere, it would be gone forever." I shook my head. "I don't want to try and do anything to it while we're in a dream, either. That just seems like a catastrophe waiting to happen."

"Right. Good point." He squeezed my hand and then opened the front door, admitting us outside.

The darkness pressed in on us unpleasantly, seeming to swallow the light from the tip of Ron's wand. The pressure of his fingers over mine, however, seemed to make it slightly more bearable.

I touched my own wand to the black iron gate, and then we hesitated outside. Ron's hand slipped into the small of my back, but there was quite a pensive look on his face as he looked down at me. "Should I do it, do you reckon?"

"It seems completely random. It was you Apparating us when we went to the Ministry, and that was my nightmare." I looked up at him, taking in the worried expression in his blue eyes. "It's not real, Ron. You're closer with your family than I could ever dream of being, and my family won't forget about me."

"Yeah. Right." He didn't sound completely convinced, but it was probably the best I was going to get. I rose up to press a gentle kiss against his lips, offering him physical comfort where words failed. When I settled back down on my feet again, he was smiling. It was a small smile, but it was there.

"Ready?" he asked. At my nod, his other hand moved to my waist and he held me close as we Disapparated.

As luck would have it, we were in the front room of his house again, the sun shining brightly through the bay window. "This is a good sign," I murmured, and he nodded his agreement. I didn't leave his side this time, although the sunshine still beckoned to me. I stayed where I was, my hand resting on his shoulder, waiting to see what would happen.

This time it was Mrs Weasley who came to greet us. She bustled in with a relieved smile on her face. "There you are, dear, we've been worried sick about you!" She came right over to us and pulled Ron into a motherly embrace, causing him to release me, and giving his cheek a firm kiss before she turned to face me, a politely expectant look on her face.

"Mum, this is Daphne," Ron introduced me. I could see the relief on his face as well, the gratefulness that we'd ended up here again instead of somewhere that he didn't really exist.

I'd met Mrs Weasley the day before, of course, had spent some time complimenting her cooking and listening to her speaking with her family. There was absolutely no recognition on her face, it was like the dream had reset. We were going to have to stay here until Bill got back, and chances were, that would mean spending the night. I was relieved as well, that there was no sign of the witch who had filled the role of Ron's girlfriend.

"Daphne, it's good to meet you." Quite to my surprise, I was given similar treatment by the Weasley matriarch, enfolded into a tender embrace with my cheek soundly kissed. I stood there stiffly until she released me, not entirely sure how to respond. When she let me go and stepped back, I could see Ron unsuccessfully hiding his amusement.

"I'll go and let everyone know you're back," she told him. "There's tea on if you're hungry. Merlin knows you probably haven't had a proper meal since you've been gone." Still fussing in a loving sort of way, she retreated from the room.

I was relieved that the witch that didn't exist wasn't here to see us. While I wasn't prepared for the warmth his dream-mother had shown me, it was far preferable than what had happened yesterday.

What ensued was quite similar to what had happened the last time; a sea of bodies came into the room, greeting Ron and telling him how happy they were to see him again, and how glad they were that he was all right.

There was one important difference this time- somehow, I didn't feel excluded. It may have been the way Ron kept ahold of my hand, but the love everyone was showing him seemed to automatically extend to me as well, even though I hadn't really met half of these people before, and my relationship had been distantly cool at best with the rest of them.

It was enough that I had to turn away on the pretext of going to the window to look outside to get away from it. It made me distinctly uncomfortable, that all of these virtual strangers would automatically extend such acceptance and even affection to someone they didn't know simply because I was with Ron. I had to remind myself that it wasn't real, that no one in this room aside from Ron would really be this welcoming of me if this were actually happening. It was madness.

I felt a familiar pair of hands on my shoulders, and I reached up and rested my own hand over Ron's long fingers. "I'm all right," I insisted quietly, keeping my voice low so that it wouldn't betray the swell of emotions. Normally I was much better at hiding away how I was feeling, but this was just so intense.

"I talked to Bill," he told me, close enough to my ear that his breath moved stray strands of my hair so they tickled against my skin. "Now we just need to wait. Are you ready to go in for tea?"

"I don't know, I had such a delicious breakfast that I'm not sure I'm ready to eat again. Why don't you show me the rest of the house?" If the day followed the same way the previous day had, we had some time, and it would be easier to go into another part of the house and perhaps distract Ron in a very physical way than to go into the dining room and be so loved and accepted by people who were virtually strangers that I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

I turned away from the window to face Ron. He was close enough that I had to look up at him, trying to express exactly what I was suggesting with a look. There was a swift gleam of recognition in his own blue eyes, and then an answering heat as his mouth moved up into a knowing grin.

"Yeah, I reckon I could do that." He took my hand and drew me away from the people, away from the crowd that Mrs Weasley was busy herding into the dining room, and into the hall beyond. I would never suggest anything like that in reality, it would be the absolute height of rudeness to even consider it. Here, though, it seemed like the things we did had no real consequences. This was Ron's dream, and in his dream I was fairly sure that his family would love him no matter how many social graces he ignored.

The house was very lovely. It was nowhere near as large as my family home or Malfoy Manor, but it was stately enough in its own right, suitable for a full family. The furnishings were elegant and simple, the type of thing that suited each room very well, but could easily be added on to for a more personal touch. It was a shame that Ron didn't actually own this house.

The master bedroom was on the second storey, tucked into a back corner of the house. A set of French doors opened onto a balcony that overlooked a back garden that was just as lush and green as the front garden.

I turned from the view to see Ron standing just inside the doors with his hands in his pockets. He smiled when he saw me looking at him. "It's very lovely here," I told him.

The colour was back in the tips of his ears. "It is. I reckon I don't have to tell you that this is the one I actually want. Maybe some day I'll be able to afford it."

I moved to him, resting my palms gently on his chest as I looked up into his face. "It seems to me that you would likely have a better chance of doing that if you worked with your brother than if you continued on at the Ministry."

"Yeah, maybe."

I slipped one hand up over his shoulder and behind his neck, tugging gently until he ducked his head, his mouth coming down to meet mine. His own hands came up, resting in the small of my back and pressing me against him. We stayed like that for some time, and about the time that I moved my lips along his jaw to flick my tongue against his earlobe, we ended up moving over to the large, solidly-framed bed that seemed to be the central focus of the room.

He seemed a lot more confident in his efforts to undress me this time, fingers moving surely through my buttons and sliding my clothes off until I was left with nothing on. We dallied there for a while just kissing and touching before he settled himself between my legs, joining our bodies together in the ages-old mating dance.

There wasn't quite as much post-coital cuddling as there had been the night previous, but neither one of us wanted to miss Bill on the off-chance that he was back earlier that day. We re-dressed and headed back downstairs together.

Bill was still gone. Ron's brothers, especially the twins, gave him quite a lot of good-natured ribbing about disappearing for a while, but no one really seemed to care that we had been gone, nor that there was really only one thing we could have been doing. We'd been gone for the entirety of tea, so someone asked Ron if he still had enough energy for Quidditch.

We ended up in the front garden again, Quidditch being played over the lawn, with Charlie and Hermione flirting over by the treeline. At length it grew dark, and this time we went back inside for some dinner instead of leaving. The rest of his family left as the night drew on, and Bill still hadn't returned, so we settled in upstairs in the master bedroom together. Normally I have a hard time sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, but with Ron just behind me, his arm securely around my waist, it wasn't long before I was drifting off.

**A/N: Another update! Hopefully the next one will also be timely!**


	10. Chapter 10

It was wonderful to wake up with the sun shining in through the glass-paned doors that opened onto the balcony. I smiled, nestling myself a little more securely back against Ron. He was already awake, judging from the way his lips moved over the bare skin of my shoulder. "Morning," I bade him quietly. This was lovely, an improvement even over the night previously that we'd spent in the kitchen. The bed was rather softer than even the charms on the kitchen floor, and the sunlight...

"I reckon we should get up soon, in case Bill comes back." His words were low, slightly muffled by my long auburn hair, left loose to sleep.

"That certainly is one option." I shifted my hips, brushing my backside against the erection that was rather insistently pressing against me. "However, I believe I have a slightly more attractive option."

We stayed in bed for a while, but Bill didn't turn up that day, or the following few days. It was easy to get lulled into a sense of complacency. His family, such as they were represented here, were all perfectly lovely, most of them turning up at some point every day, and there was no shortage of conversation partners beyond Ron. I also felt absolutely no compunction at hiding myself away in one of the myriad of rooms where other people _weren't_, when it all got to be a bit much for me. These weren't real people. They didn't react as most real people do when faced with a touch of introversion. And there was always something for Ron to be doing. Chess and Quidditch, talking and arguing with his family, tearing about with his nieces and nephews.

And the sunlight, beautiful, bright, reassuring. It was as though there was a very solid weight lifted from my shoulders with the absence of the lethal swallowing darkness. Despite my sister's absence, it was very easy to be happy here.

At least for a while. This time I was the one who was starting to get restless. Questions to Fleur about her husband's whereabouts turned up the answer that he was looking into breaking the curse on the Dream Box, and he would be along when he was done. She was completely unconcerned about it, and any protests that it was fine and he didn't need to were brushed away without further comment. That answer wasn't sufficient, and grew less so as the time went on, so I sought out Hermione Granger.

I found her easily enough, tucked away in a spare bedroom with a book, her feet stretched out in front of her as she sat back against the cushion easing her comfort in the long window seat. She smiled up at me when I entered the room. This Hermione and I were friends. This Hermione and I had never been at odds in school, had never been in social circles that opposed each other.

"What are you reading?" I asked, moving across the thick cream carpet until I was sitting at the other end of the long bench, just beside her feet.

She lifted the book to show me the cover- a tome on Arithmancy. I wasn't surprised, we'd shared Arithmancy classes at school. "Just taking a bit of a break before lunch."

I nodded. "I was wondering if you knew anything about cursed objects." One of the things Ron admired in her was her seemingly endless wealth of knowledge. It followed, then, that here her knowledge would be enhanced.

She took the bookmark from her knee and laid it tenderly between the open pages before closing the book and setting it gently beside herself. "Not a whole lot, it's certainly not my speciality." Her brown eyes studied me for a moment, and she bent one knee up to rest her forearm on it. "What kind of cursed object?"There was an eagerness in her tone that betrayed her curiosity.

I stared at her, trying to decide how much I needed to reveal. "Something to do with sleep, dreams."

She was chewing her lower lip absently, a habit of hers I'd come to associate with concentration. "As in, causes people to fall asleep or dream?" At my nod, she was chewing her lip again. "A lot of the old Muggle legends and fairy tales came from interactions or rumors from the wizarding world. The ones having to do with sleep were nearly always solved with a kiss."

That was no help. If there was one thing Ron and I had tried about as often as we could, it was kissing. I arched an eyebrow at her. "A bit difficult for someone who's sleeping to kiss anyone." There was no chance that someone wouldn't have already tried that in the waking world, assuming our bodies had been left behind. I hoped it was Blaise; we still got together for very casual sex every so often. Or we had; he'd been my bitter, getting-over-Adrian shag, but I hadn't really seen him since then. Unfortunately, I was almost certain that it would have been someone else.

Her laugh, sounding a touch uncomfortable, pulled my mind away from my unpleasant line of thought. Hermione's cheeks were turning a light shade of pink. "No, someone else- not sleeping- has to kiss them." She must have mistook my silent stare because she rushed on to say, "I know, it sounds a bit sexual-assualt-ish to me too, but then a lot of the old fairy tales were written for adults, in less enlightened times."

Less enlightened? I wasn't entirely sure what she meant by that, and I refrained from commenting that they likely wouldn't have had any difficulty finding someone who was willing to try and wake me with a kiss. "So no way of someone waking themselves up?"

"No. Not in any fairy tale I've ever heard of." Her gaze sharpened on me. "Why? Want to put a curse on your new brother-in-law?"

My heart sank. "Draco? He's not so bad. My mum, though..." I kept my tone light, pleasant.

She sat up, moving her feet over the edge of the window seat and dangling them down to the floor. "That would be an interesting study, if those affected by sleeping curses dreamed while they were sleeping, or if they just woke up again when the curse broke. I mean, assuming the old fairy tales are based in truth and not just someone worried about a coma or something. They made up all sorts of mythology to explain things they didn't understand."

"I'm sure they do." I would need to make sure that Ron found out if the real Hermione Granger would be as curious about it as this one was. I let out a long breath and noticed that my fingers were tapping silently against my thigh. I didn't stop, it didn't seem to bother Hermione, and chances were that I would start again in a moment anyway. "What could it be if it wasn't a naturally-inflicted coma?" I had to be very careful how I worded things. If I wasn't careful, Hermione would go away on a quest for research like Bill had, and then there was a very good chance she wouldn't come back either.

"Sleeping Draught, but those will wear off eventually. Could be coincidentally at the moment of a kiss, though."

I nodded. I'd considered that- maybe there had been a Sleeping Draught set on the Dream Box somehow, or maybe even in the bottle of champagne we'd split. But, assuming time ran the same way in the waking world that it did here, there was no way it wouldn't have worn off yet.

"There's the _Somnambulus_ curse, but that would be cast directly on someone and I can't think of any way to put it on an object." She was chewing on her lip again, looking at me though her eyes were unfocused as she searched her memories. "It involves directly slowing down a portion of the brain, if I recall correctly, and you need a living subject to cast it on. I can go and look-" she made to get up.

I reached out and gently rested my hand on her shoulder before she was even halfway out of her seat. "No, don't do that. Just idle curiosity."

She settled back down again. "There's got to be something, the tale of Sleeping Beauty has her pricking her finger on an enchanted spindle and falling into a magical sleep for a hundred years." Hermione's mouth moved up into a wry smile. "Of course, she could have just passed out from blood loss or something equally as non-magical, combined with a great deal of hyperbole. If one of my family members was in a comatose state, I'd probably feel like it was a hundred years until they woke up." Her eyes came into focus again, looking directly at me. "You don't spin, do you?"

"Well, I used to, but I gave it up to be a chandler." I returned with a straight face, making her grin. I was thinking. It wasn't much to go on, but it was some new information, perhaps a new direction for research. And, as loathe as I was to leave Ron's house, I wanted to get out, back into the real world. There was a library back at Malfoy Manor. I rather doubted that I would find a collection of Muggle fairy tales in said library, but perhaps there would be more information on this spindle, especially if it had accidentally- or not so accidentally- cursed a Muggle.

I shivered at the thought of the house, dark and lifeless, waiting for me.

"You okay?" Hermione asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

I nodded. "I had a bit of a chill. I'm all right."

She was looking past me again as though she was thinking about something else. "There was a version of the fairy tale where Sleeping Beauty was, er, well Prince Charming found her and took advantage of her, and the babies woke her up."

I arched an eyebrow. _Babies?_ "That doesn't sound very 'charming' to me." I certainly hoped it didn't come to that, though doubtless there wouldn't be any problem finding someone to fill that role, either. That was an unpleasant thought, not one I cared to dwell on.

I stood, smoothing down the front of my trousers. "I'll leave you to it then, I believe it'll be lunch soon."

Hermione smiled at me in parting, already picking up her book and opening it to where the bookmark had kept her page for her.

I left the room, intent on finding Ron. I'd left him earlier that morning in the front room with the marvelous bay windows. He'd been speaking with his twin brothers, and there were discussions about playing chess. Peering into the front room showed that he was approximately where I'd left him, now seated at the chessboard across from one of his brothers. He glanced up as I entered the room, a smile on his face, then turned his attention back to the pieces in front of him. His pieces had complete confidence in him, simply standing there on the board and waiting for direction.

I moved over behind him and rested my hands lightly on his shoulders. "Can I have a moment?" I asked him.

His attention came up off of the chessboard, blue eyes lifting to me as he tilted his head back to look up into my face. I could see the anticipatory look on his face. We were still part of our new relationship that involved frequent intimacy, and there was little doubt what he thought I was asking him for.

I shook my head. "I need to speak with you about something, Ron."

His expression turned slightly worried, no doubt due to the tone of my voice. He looked from me to the chessboard and his brother sitting on the other side.

"Go on," whichever twin he was playing against said from across the small table. "We can finish later."

"Yeah. Sorry." He braced his hands on the edge of the table, and I shifted back to allow him room to push the chair back and stand. The chair legs rasped against the thick carpet on the floor, and his hand brushed over my back as he stood before he offered me his arm. I took it, and we walked together through the house until we came to the front garden. It was deserted, the perfect place for a serious conversation.

I released him and stepped away a few paces before turning back to look at him. I suspected that he wasn't going to like what I was going to say very much at all. "I was talking to Hermione, and she mentioned something I want to look into."

"Look into?" There was recognition in his eyes, he knew exactly what I was talking about. But, like I had suspected, he was in denial that I meant what I was alluding to.

"Yes. And as lovely as it is here, there's no library. I need to get back to the manor." I braced myself for the argument that was sure to come.

He was frowning at that. "But why? Why can't we just wait for Bill?"

"We've been waiting for Bill, Ron. It's been a while, and he hasn't come back. I'm beginning to believe that he simply won't come back."

"Well..." His arms folded across his chest. "Would that really be so bad? We could just... stay here."

I shook my head, closing my eyes for a long moment. I took a deep breath, breathing in from my diaphragm, a measure to keep my tone level and not antagonistic or even defensive. "I can't." I opened my eyes and met his gaze as unantagonistically as I could.

"Why the fuck not? You seem perfectly happy." His voice was starting to raise a little. It was his dream. He was proud of it, he loved it, and he seemed to think that I was attacking it, that my unwillingness to stay was due to some perceived deficiency.

"This isn't my dream, Ron. This isn't real." His eyes hardened a little as I said that, his face moving from a frown into a full-on scowl.

I waved my hand off to the side, moving my line of reasoning away from any perceived defects in his dreams and more specifically to myself, to try and create distance between the two. "There's a life out there waiting for me, my sister and I'll probably have a niece or nephew soon..." I shook my head, looking into his angry blue eyes. "I want to get back to my life."

His eyes moved over me disdainfully, studying my face. It took a moment, and then, "I wasn't aware you _had_ a life!" he snapped. His eyes moved over me again. "I didn't think you liked your misery that much, but maybe I was wrong. I hope you enjoy your life as Mrs Malfoy."

That stung. There was no way he didn't know exactly how much that would hurt me, and he looked entirely unrepentant for having said it. I'd expressed that I was sensitive about what had comprised my life and my future before we came here, and here he was, throwing it in my face. I stared at him for a moment, drawing myself up to my full height and schooling my features into the careful blankness that he hated so much. "I was under the impression you were going to assist with that." My voice was pleasant, maybe just a trace of ice.

From the way his ears were starting to go bright red, I was fairly certain I didn't want to hear whatever was coming next. "If you'll excuse me." There was nothing pleasant in my cold words.

I left. In an instant, I found myself back between the encompassing blackness and the cold iron of the Malfoys' front gates. The darkness pressed in at me from behind, seeming to feed off of how upset I was, sending a chill up my spine. I couldn't blame Ron for not wanting to leave the warm sunshine and happiness of his dream for this, but there was certainly no call to speak to me the way he had.

A touch of my wand to the black wrought-iron gate, and I was walking quickly up the gravel drive to the beckoning rectangles of light we'd left on in the house. It was chillier here than I was used to now, and I clutched my arms tightly to myself, not quite running. I wanted to be out of the cold darkness as soon as possible. As unpleasant as it had been to come along here with Ron, even when he was unconscious, making this journey on my own was even less so. It seemed that the darkness was actually reaching towards me in an intangible way, but I suspected it was just my mind playing tricks on me. I sure hoped so.

The promise of the wide front doors drew closer, but not quickly enough for my liking. The grand manor here wasn't as much of a haven as Ron's dream-house was, but it had a large fireplace and plenty of duvets and pillows to keep me comfortable. And Ron wouldn't be here. I couldn't stop thinking about the utterly uncaring look in his eyes as he'd said what he'd said.

Part of me railed at the idea of leaving him behind. He was the one constant in my life right now, the one link I had to reality, and I'd left him in his dream. I was very certain, however, that the next thing out of his mouth would have been even more unpleasant, and I wasn't sure that I was prepared for that. Was this something that normally happened? I knew he had a temper, but I hadn't seen him be this purposely hurtful before. I couldn't believe he'd said that.

I closed the door maybe a touch too firmly behind me, moving through the ornate house until I came to the library. A quick flick of my wand set a roaring fire- perhaps a bit too roaring, and I had to use another touch of magic to get it down to a more manageable level.

I paced once around the pair of wing chairs that sat before the glowing flames, but I couldn't face the idea of sitting down and studying, even though I wanted to get to it. My rapid steps took me back out of the hall and down to the kitchen, where I brewed myself a very strong cup of tea.

It wasn't until I was about halfway through the tea that thoughts beyond my own emotional turmoil started coming to the surface. I'd left him there. What would happen to him? I assumed nothing would happen, that he was still there, playing chess with his brother or stewing or whatever he was doing. But what if I tried to get back to him? I wouldn't be leaving from the manor with him, so would I just be restricted to my own dreams and nightmares?

The thought sent me running back through the house on bare feet. I ducked into the library, my eyes seeking, relieved to see the Dream Box still sitting there on the mantle. This was our anchor, so he would have to come back _here_... He wouldn't be sent to another version of Malfoy Manor, somewhere on his own, would he?

And did I even have a chance of getting out of here without him?

**A/N: Some unpleasantness. Every relationship has its growing pains.**


	11. Chapter 11

By lunchtime, I was glad that I'd taken the opportunity to learn how to prepare meals. Not that making a sandwich for myself was a stretch, and there were certainly enough sandwich-making things were stocked in the "family" kitchen, as well as the platters of desserts charmed against spoilage. But if Ron hadn't turned up by that evening, well... I didn't fancy sandwiches and pudding at every meal. It was nice to have another option.

I wasn't really hungry, but I knew I should have something to eat. I hadn't yet been able to settle in to get any research done. I hadn't even had a chance to settle down with a book on my knee. Every time I stood in front of the tall bookshelves and tried to focus on the letters on the aged spines, my mind would wander towards a particular redhead and linger there, making it impossible for me to concentrate on anything else. My emotions had long since turned from hurt to anger. Anger was easier to carry around with me.

However, the anger meant that I made a bit of a mess in the kitchen when I put the top piece of bread on my sandwich and condiments were thrown out of it from the force. I took the time to clean up before I ate, not wanting to get sauce on my trousers when I sat on the counter to eat. Sitting on the counter was an easy habit to fall back into, and the act of it made me feel a little better, even if Mr Malfoy wasn't here to know that I was giving a two-finger salute to the properness of his home. That was something Ron had shown me, explaining what Muggles used it for.

Ron. Why couldn't I stop thinking about him?

It was so quiet in the house, too quiet. I was used to dining with others now; dinner in his dream house was usually a loud affair, with various members of his family gathered along the dining table, all talking and laughing and occasionally shouting. It had taken a bit to get used to, it actually reminded me quite a lot of how mealtimes had gone at school. The noise level was almost comparable. But even when it was just the two of us sharing a meal and we were quiet as we ate, there was the sound of another person existing in the same space. Breathing, chewing... He would give me a bit of a cheeky grin whenever he caught my eye.

I missed it. I missed him. And damn him for making me leave!

I didn't finish my sandwich, the last of the bread seemed to stick in my throat no matter how I tried to wash it down with tea. Eventually, I just disposed of the remains and sat on the counter top, staring into my mostly-empty tea cup. I wanted to do something. I wanted to do something more than going back into the library and sitting down with a book.

I had an idea. I'd seen a large portion of the Malfoys' house, but there were still rooms I hadn't seen. One of the benefits of being on my own was that I was actually alone, giving me ample opportunity to sing. Even if I couldn't find a proper music room with appropriate acoustics, there were more than enough bathrooms that would do if I needed them to.

I took my wand from the smooth counter top and returned it to its customary spot in my trouser pocket, walking quickly across the kitchen floor and out into the rest of the house.

My exploration of the house turned up several things that sent shivers up my spine, either from the look of them or from the way they seemed to turn the air colder around me, but I did at last find a music room. It looked neat and little-used. Even with the immaculate way the house-elves keep their houses, there's an air of disuse that settles on rooms that are seldom ventured into. This room had that, with its neat wooden floor and specially paneled walls.

There were a pair of chairs sitting against one wall, but the room was otherwise empty. I stepped inside, closing the door firmly behind me.

I didn't quite feel comfortable here. This wasn't my house. There were no windows in the room, but I was still very aware of the darkness pressing in on the house. Still, though, this was the first time I'd been alone in a little while, and if I had to be alone, I was definitely going to take advantage of it.

I took another look around the room to ensure I was still by myself, although it was quite unnecessary. The only other person who could possibly come upon me here was Ron, and he was somewhere else entirely, and not likely to just barge in. Even if he did return to the manor, he would have to spend a good bit of time searching for me, giving me ample warning that he was coming. I never sang in front of other people, and I certainly didn't intend to start- especially with how I was currently feeling about him.

I vocalised, warming up my vocal chords. Singing felt a bit shaky, not having used my voice for anything other than conversation in a while. But I sang. I closed my eyes and imagined that I was back at the shore in Cornwall, the far-off sound of the waves accompanying me. I found myself going through _Enchanted_, the latest ballad by the Weird Sisters. There was a melancholy to it that seemed to fit my emotions perfectly.

I felt better when I stopped, my mood was somewhat lighter. Not entirely, though, and I knew that if I didn't get to work soon, I would quickly lose myself in thoughts of my... Well, in thoughts of Ron. The word that had come to mind was, _boyfriend_. Was Ron my boyfriend?

I eased the door open and let myself out, headed back downstairs from the second-storey room I'd used. I was a little regretful to go, but the music room would still be there tomorrow. I would most assuredly still be here tomorrow, too, and I'd probably appreciate the distraction.

I was able to lose myself in the library for the rest of the afternoon. I stared at the yellowed pages of old books until my eyes started to sting from the effort. "I should eat," I said aloud, lifting my eyes from the book on my lap and resting my head against the back of the wing chair. I wasn't sure what time it was, but my stomach was starting to remind me that it needed attention.

I gazed up at the ceiling, still feeling like I was looking at curled black letters even though the surface above me was completely white and smooth. I didn't want to get up and eat. I didn't really want to leave the library. If I was going to be completely honest with myself, I didn't want to leave because I'd told Ron that this was where I wanted to be, and I didn't want him to miss me if he came back.

"Just a few more minutes," I promised myself, though I knew it was a promise that I was likely to break.

The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes, my head already throbbing with the headache that sleeping in these chairs seemed to bring from the muscles being twisted painfully across the back of my neck.

I grabbed my wand from the table beside me and cast the spell to ease the pain. I sat forward, rotating my head, working the muscles as I got to my feet. I wasn't going to be able to sleep in one of these chairs again. Maybe I could get some pillows and a duvet and sleep on the floor. There was certainly enough bedding in the house to make something more comfortable for myself to sleep on.

That thought, of course, conjured up memories of Ron charming the kitchen floor to be soft enough to sleep on, and what exactly had happened that night. I was smiling before I realised it, the memories lifting my mood before I remembered that I was still very upset with that particular wizard.

I still had absolutely no idea what time it was. My own watch was somewhere upstairs in the room Ron and I had slept in while we were here. At least, I assumed it was; I hadn't worn it in quite a while. It seemed like too much effort to go up and search for it. And, of course, going up there would probably conjure up all sorts of other memories that I simply wasn't ready for.

I pushed myself up out of the chair and started down the hall towards the kitchen. Coffee and breakfast would help. I was just pushing open the kitchen door, one hand massaging the muscles at the back of my neck, when I saw something I wasn't quite expecting.

Breakfast was already laid out on the counter, a steaming mug set on the counter beside the rather full plate. A very familiar tall redhead was standing on the other side of the counter, looking at me with an expression that seamlessly melded sheepishness, contriteness, and hope.

I arched an eyebrow, stopping in the doorway and staring. "Morning," I offered politely. I was relieved to see him, so much so that I wanted to dash across the kitchen and throw myself at him. I refrained, though; I couldn't forget what he'd said.

He smiled to see me, I could clearly see the relief in his blue eyes, even from here. "I wanted to apologise. I'm just... You met all my brothers, yeah?"

"In a manner of speaking." It was odd to think that while I was familiar with his entire family, we'd never actually met. When we got out of here, they wouldn't know me, despite my having spent a large portion of the past little while with them. I dropped my hands to my sides and stood there watching him, trying to convey a sense of being relaxed. I was anything but relaxed.

"Right. Well, I'm the youngest boy, of course, and they were all bigger than me when we were growing up, so I couldn't pummel them. So I..." His ears were starting to glow, and he dropped his gaze to stare intently at the plate of bacon. Slightly crispy, just the way I liked it. "I got used to saying something I knew would make them mad, and then running like hell. I don't run anymore, but I still sometimes do the other bit."

"I see." I kept my words carefully neutral. I didn't know what he expected me to do with that information. He had done it, and it still hurt.

His eyes came up to meet mine again. "I'm sorry, Daph." The apology was sincere. I'd had my fair share of insincere apologies, and this one was definitely heart-felt. His eyes were the perfect blend of remorse and hope, he knew what he'd done was wrong and he just wanted it to be over. I wasn't sure I was ready for that. I'd trusted him more than I'd trusted anyone in a long time, and he'd betrayed that trust by saying something he knew would hurt me.

I watched him in silence for a few moments. "You made breakfast?" I eventually asked, gesturing to the contents of the counter. I felt the need to say something, but I wasn't ready to accept the apology just yet.

Relief washed over his face. I hadn't voiced forgiveness, but apparently my willingness to eat the food he'd prepared for me amounted to much the same thing.

"Probably a bit too much." He ducked his head, staring down at the plate of sausages. "I just wanted to make sure you could eat whatever you wanted."

"Thank you, that's very... thoughtful." It was. He'd cooked everything I'd voiced approval over while we were staying in the house, just heaps of food piled across the counter with two empty plates a stark white contrast. I wasn't sure what else to say.

He came out from behind the counter, arms outstretched. It was obvious what he wanted. I stepped into the circle of his arms, finding comfort there despite the lingering anger I had towards him. It was good to see him again, I was relieved he was here. I tucked my cheek against him so that he couldn't seek out my lips for a kiss; I wasn't ready for that much intimacy.

It was odd to feel so conflicted. After just a moment I stepped away, intent on breakfast. I caught the disappointed look out of the corner of my eye, but really... What did he expect from me?

Breakfast was unusually quiet and awkward, and after we finished eating, we went back to the library. I took his offered arm as I normally did, but I knew he could tell that something was still amiss between us.

"Hermione gave you some new information?" he asked when we'd walked into the familiar shelved room. He seemed eager to sit down and work with me, perhaps an act of contrition.

"Yes. She told me about an old Muggle fairy tale where the princess..." I couldn't stop the smirk from coming over my face at that. It was always a princess in those stories, as though being an heiress of such responsibility was a vaunted position. I was the heiress to my family line, and there certainly wasn't anything grand or desirable about it. "The princess pricked her finger on an enchanted spindle and fell asleep for a hundred years. She was awakened with a kiss."

"We've... Well, we've done that. Done a lot more than that, yeah?" There was a very knowing grin on his face when I looked up at him.

I could feel a hint of heat spreading over my cheeks. Had he really just made me blush? I never blushed. I slipped away from him, walking over to a bookshelf I'd pegged as likely just yesterday. "Yes. But I'm hoping that if the story was based on something from our world, there will be information about the enchanted spindle in here. I already checked the book that had the Dream Box in it, there was nothing in there. We may want to focus our search on curses that are known to have been enacted on Muggles." Unsurprisingly, the Malfoys' library contained a veritable trove of such information.

I selected a book from the shelf, and after a moment, he did the same, taking the time to study the spines before he did. He was certainly taking this seriously today. We got settled into our respective chairs in front of the fire and bent our heads to our research. I could feel the weight of his eyes on me every time he looked at me, but he didn't say anything to address the tension between us.

His reminding me of the intimate time we'd spent together made me remember what Hermione had said about the princess being awoken by babies. I was current on my contraceptive charm, but I wondered if I could even get pregnant here. And if I could get pregnant and successfully give birth, what would happen to the child if we were to return to the real world after that? Not that I was at all close to being ready for children, but it was a good question.

We spent the next several hours in a silence punctuated only by the turning of pages, the shifting of bodies against our seats. I was getting nowhere. Even with the little bits of information Hermione had given me, I wasn't any closer to finding a solution than I had been the day previous when I'd woken up in Ron's dream house.

I dropped the book I was looking at to the floor, uncaring that I might damage the spine. It wasn't real. I wasn't doing any permanent damage to the contents of the Malfoys' library. I got to my feet and walked the few steps to where the innocuous wooden box was sitting on the mantel. It seemed almost like it was taunting me with its inscrutable presence.

A kiss? We'd done plenty of that. But what if the Dream Box had to be directly involved somehow? Presumably it was Ron's casting spells on it that had activated it, so that certainly seemed possible. But how could you direct a kiss at a box?

I turned and looked over my shoulder to find Ron watching me from the wing chair beside the one I'd been occupying. He didn't look away when I caught his eye, he just looked at me with that curious look on his face.

Sighing, I turned back to the mantel and picked the Box up. I stared at it for a moment before raising it to brush my lips over it, the barest hint of a kiss.

Nothing.

"What're you doing?" Ron asked, a certain eagerness to his tone. "Did you find anything?"

"No." The word came out flat, bitter. "I'm experimenting." I stared at the smooth wooden cube, eyebrows drawn together as I contemplated it. Kissing the Box hadn't worked, but perhaps... "Come here."

I looked up to see the question in his eyes, but it went unasked as he pushed himself up from the chair and closed the small distance between us. He stood easily in front of me, blue eyes fixed on the Box in my hands.

"Put your hand on it," I directed, looking up into his face. He'd been the one touching it when it had activated, maybe he specifically needed to touch it to get us out of here. If this idea didn't work, then maybe _he_ could kiss the Box.

He rested his hand over mine, his fingers were long enough to fully contact the box on either side of my hand.

I was conflicted again about what I was about to do. I wanted to do this, both in regards to research and because I personally wanted to, but part of me, the part of me that hadn't forgiven him, still didn't want to. I looked up at him for a long moment before reaching my other hand up behind his neck and pulled him down, rising up to meet his lips in a kiss. I briefly registered the look of happy surprise at the gesture, just before my eyes fluttered closed as our mouths came together.

The floor felt like it dropped out from beneath me.

**A/N: I have the rest of the story worked out, it's just a matter of getting it onto the computer. December is so busy!**


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